The porter stood with his box-step in his hand, and blinked and wondered. And they did not even know they were observed. CHAPTER IX ALL ABOARD! The starting of the train surprised the ironical decorators in the last stages of their work. Their smiles died out in a sudden shame, as it came over them that the joke had recoiled on their own heads. They had done their best to carry out the time-honored rite of making a newly married couple as miserable as possible--and the newly married couple had failed to do its share. The two lieutenants glared at each other in mutual contempt. They had studied much at West Point about ambushes, and how to avoid them. Could Mallory have escaped the pit they had digged for him? They looked at their handiwork in disgust. The cosy-corner effect of white ribbons and orange flowers, gracefully masking the concealed rice-trap, had seemed the wittiest thing ever devised. Now it looked the silliest. The other passengers were equally downcast. Meanwhile the two lovers in the corridor were kissing good-byes as if they were hoping to store up honey enough to sustain their hearts for a three years' fast. And the porter was studying them with perplexity. He was used, however, to waking people out of dreamland, and he began to fear that if he were discovered spying on the lovers, he might suffer. So he coughed discreetly three or four times. Since the increasing racket of the train made no effect on the two hearts beating as one, the small matter of a cough was as nothing. Finally the porter was compelled to reach forward and tap Mallory's arm, and stutter: "'Scuse me, but co-could I git b-by?" The embrace was untied, and the lovers stared at him with a dazed, where-am-I? look. Marjorie was the first to realize what awakened them. She felt called upon to say something, so she said, as carelessly as if she had not just emerged from a young gentleman's arms: "Oh, porter, how long before the train starts?" "Train's done started, Missy." This simple statement struck the wool from her eyes and the cotton from her ears, and she was wide enough awake when she cried: "Oh, stop it--stop it!" "That's mo'n I can do, Missy," the porter expostulated. "Then I'll jump off," Marjorie vowed, making a dash for the door. But the porter filled the narrow path, and waved her back. "Vestibule's done locked up--train's going lickety-split." Feeling that he had safely checkmated any rashness, the porter squeezed past the dumbfounded pair, and went to change his blue blouse for the white coat of his chambermaidenly duties. Mallory's first wondering thought was a rapturous feeling that circumstances had forced his dream into a reality. He thrilled with triumph: "You've got to go with me now." "Yes--I've got to go," Marjorie assented meekly; then, sublimely, "It's fate. Kismet!" They clutched each other again in a fiercely blissful hug. Marjorie came back to earth with a bump: "Are you really sure there's a minister on board?"