Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of
their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment
of their new estate, and the man's face, in particular, beamed with
an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This
individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior
grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did
not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He
subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery.
He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and
they speedily forgot that unfrequently a number of travellers covered
them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed
to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.
"We are due in Yellow Sky at 3.42," he said, looking tenderly into her
eyes.
"Oh, are we?" she said, as if she had not been aware of it.
To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely
amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she
held it before her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new
husband's face shone.
"I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine," he told her
gleefully.
"It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said, looking up at him with
a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry.
A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at
himself in one of the numerous mirrors.
At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters in
dazzling white suits surveyed their entrance with the interest, and
also the equanimity, of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to
the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them
through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot,
his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage entwined with
the ordinary deference was not palpable to them. And yet as they
returned to their coach they showed in their faces a sense of escape.
To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of
mist, where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it
at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent
that as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became
commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in
their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far
away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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