Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1906-11-17
CHAPTER VIII.

THE HOTEL LOUIS LIE GRANDE.
All of that Thursday afternoon the
Daylight Special, overcrowded and
belated, hurried on toward New Or
leans. Every south-bound train bore
its thawing burden-refugees in furs
and sealskins who fed from snow and
sleet to a land of palm and pines be-
side the gulf of Mexico.
The dusk came gently on, and pas
sengers began opening their windows
to, the flower-scented winds. Already
they looked wistfully ahead to the
shores of summer seas upon whose
heaving bosoms the purple islands
sleep.
Mrs Ashton was negatively con-
tent, smacking her lips in that COM
placent way she had when things went
to suit her. Alice perched on a fidgety
pinnacle of delight. She was going
to Mardi Gras, and that ought to make
any girl supremacy happy. Like a ten
nis-ball she bounded back and forth
between her mother and Anita. almost
as if the cushions were too springy
for her to sit upon.
But Anita gazed so dreamily into
the twilight, without seeming to hear
or heed, that she was no fun at all.
Alice couldn't comprehend such
girl She buzzed around until she was
tired, then settled down beside her
mother, as restless as a bumble-bee
in a bucket of tar.
Anita did not want to talk: she
wanted to think And the farther the
train carried her. the more persist
emily her thoughts chung to Vicks-
burg. The chain heightened, but it
did not break. What a goose she had
been to write such a motel How COM
pletely it had been ignoredi 1t must
have been the music, the lights, the
exhtlaration of dancing that made her
do it. Then she remembered the jon
quill; Anita loathed herself when she
thought of that. Very possibly he had
flung it down in the street and
laughed.
She wondered if Mamie Kerr hadn't
some lurking suspicion that she had
expected to meet Noel at her house
Girls are so very sharp. Gossips in
Viclssburg were busy coupling their
names, talking about how Mrs Ash
ton hated Duke, how he and Anita met
at the houses of their friends. how
a thousand singing little "hows" and
why's" and whispers that maddened
her. Anita's face flushed; what a fool,
what fool she had beeni
Mamie would laugh, Ellen would
laugh. every old long-tongued thing
in town would laugh. But Joe Balfour
would not laugh-dear old joe He
would be sorry for her, and Anita
would hate that most of ALL
Even when the lights of New Or
leans glimmered across the level hori-
zon, and Alice pointed to them excit-
eddy, they reused no interest in Anita.
She didn't want to go to New Orleans !,
she didn't want to go anywhere; she
wanted to go back home, to Virginia,
where she could be alone.
Before the putting locomotive came
to full stop at the station, man
stepped OF the front platform of the
smoker. Duke ha / sat on the front
seat all the way from Jackson. his hat
pulled down over his eyes. speaking to
nobody. He glanced anxiously about
the platform. A blue uniform stalked
by and startled him. 1t was only the
conductor of a sleeping car He
shrank back out of the light, stopped
in the shadow of a post and watched
= the passengers crowding past him
Anita came so close he might easily
have touched her.
He followed her cautiously through