Actresses -- Fiction; Irish -- United States -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery fiction; Young women -- Fiction
And so it came to pass as the train started that the baggageman, who
happened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to see
a small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and land
sprawling on the floor beside him.
"A girl tramp!" he ejaculated in amazement and disgust, and then, as
he helped her to her feet, "Don't you know you're breaking the law?"
She laughed. "From the feelings, I thought it was something else."
She sobered and turned on him fiercely. "I want ye to understand I've
paid my fare on the train out, which entitled me to one continuous
passage--_with my trunk_. Well, I'm returning--_as my trunk_, I'll
take up no more room and I'll ask no more privileges."
"That may sound sensible, but it's not law," and the man grinned
broadly. "I'm sorry, miss, but off you go at the next station."
"All right," agreed Patsy; "only please don't argue. Sure, I'm sick
entirely of arguing."
She dropped down on a trunk and buried her face in her hands. The
baggageman watched her, hypnotized with curiosity and wonder. At the
next station he helped her to drop through the opening she had
entered, and called a shamefaced "good-by" after her in the dusk.
She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement:
Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of that
description getting off every day. They generally went to the
Inn--Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society people
were beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn's 'buses
did not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless ordered
especially by guests. Was she expected?
Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around the
corner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where she
and the station-master were standing.
The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning,
hesitating manner. "Is this--are you Miss St. Regis?" he finally
asked.
"Miriam St. Regis?" Patsy intended it for a question, realizing even
as she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an English
actress at such a place.
But the driver took it for a statement of identity. "Yes, of course,
Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought because
your box came from town you'd be coming that way. It wasn't until
your manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that he
realized you'd be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to have
kept you waiting. Step right in, please."
Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her
to a seat, covered her with a rug--for early June evenings can be
rather sharp--and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a
stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to her
ears.
"Sure, I don't know who wrote the play and starred me in it," she
mused, dreamily, "but he certainly knows how to handle situations."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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