The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1911-01-27


less indeed he labored gravely under a
misapprehension. he was observing
her for the second time within the
past few hours.
Could he be mistaken, or was this in
truth the same woman who had las
he believed) made herself free of his
rooms that evening?
In confirmation of such suspicion he
remarked her costume, which was al
together worked out in soft shades OF
gray. Gray was the misty veil, drawn
in and daintily knotted beneath her
chin, which lent her head and face
such thorough protection against pry-
ing glances; of gray suede were the
light gauntlets that hid all save the
slenderness of her small hands; and
the wrap that, cut upon full and flow
ing lines, cloaked her figure beyond
suggestion, was gray. Yet even its
ample drapery could not dissemble
the fact that she was quite small,
girlishly slight, like the woman in the
doorway; nor did aught temper her
impersonal and detached cOmpOsure,
which had also been an attribute OF
the woman in the doorway. And again
she was alone, unchaperoned, unpro-
tected.
Yes? Or no? And, if yes, what to
do? Was he to alight and accost her,
accuse her of forcing an entrance to
his rooms for the sole purpose Gas far
as ascertainable) of presenting him
with the outline of her hand in the
dust of his desks top? On,
hardly! It was all very well to be
daringly eccentric and careless OF the
worlds censure; but one scarcely
cared to lay ones self open either to
an unknown girls derision or to a
sound pummeling at the hands of fell
low passengers enraged by the insult
offered to an unescorted woman.
The young man was still bordering
ways and means when a dull bump ap-
prised him that the ferry boat was en-
tering the Long Island City slip. THE
DEVIL" he exclaimed in mingled dis
gust and dismay, realizing that his
distraction had been so thorough as to
permit the voyage to take place almost
without his realizing it. So that now
worse luck!-it was too late to take
any one of the hundred fantastic steps
he had contemplated half seriously. In
another two minutes his charming
mystery, so bewitchingly incarnated,
would have slipped out of his life, fl
nally and beyond recall. And he could
do naught to hinder such a finale to
the adventure.
Sulkily he resigned himself to the
inevitable, waiting and watching,
while the boat slid and Numbered
clumsily, paddle wheels churning the
filthy waters over side, to the floating
bridge; while the winches ratified, and
the woman, sitting up briskly in the
drivers seat of the motor car, bent
forward and advanced the spark; while
the chain fell clanking and the car
shot out, over the bridge, through the
gates, and away, at very consider
able, even if lawful, rate of speed.
Whereupon, writing fms to the final
chapter of Romance, voting the world
a dull place and life treadmill, an
athematizing in no uncertain terms his
lack of resource and address, Maitland
paid off his cabby, alighted, and to
that worthy's boundless wonder,
walked into the waiting room of the
railway terminus without deviating a
hairs breadth from the Straight and
circumscribed path of the sober in
mind and body.
The 1920 had departed by bare
two minutes. The next and last train
for Greenfields was to leave at 1889.
Maitland with assumed nonchalance
composed himself upon a bench in the
waiting room to endure the 37-minute
interval. Five minutes later an able
bodied washerwoman with six children
in quarter sizes descended upon the
same bench; and the young man in
desperation allowed himself to be dis
possessed. The news stand next attract
ing him, he garnered fugitive amuse-
ment and two dozen copper cents by
the simple process of purchasing six
might extras" which he did not want,
and paying for each with five-cent
piece. Comprehending, at length, that
he had irritated the news dealer, he
meandered off, jingling his copper for
tune in one hand, Juggling his news
papers in the other, and made de-
termined onslaught upon a slot ma
chine. The latter having reluctantly
disgorged "a assorted samples of
chewing gum and stale sweetmeats,
Maitland returned to the washerwom-
an, and sowed dissension in her brood
by presenting the treasure horde to
the eldest girl with instructions to
share it with her brothers and sisters.
It is> difficult to imagine what folly
might next have been recorded against
him had not, at that moment, a fe-
rocious and inarticulate howl from the
train starter announced the fact that
the 1859 was in waiting.
Boarding the train in thankful
spirit, Maitland settled himself as com.
fortably as he might in the smoker
and endeavored to find surcease of
ennui in his collection of extras. In
vain; even a two-column portrait OF
Mr. non Anictu