CHAPTER I

ON THE TRAIN

The first call to luncheon had been fervidly welcomed in the Pullman.
While the intense heat was not conducive to appetite, and hours of
inaction rendered hunger out of the question, the summons of the
white-aproned, ebon-skinned envoy of Epicurus produced an anticipatory
ripple. Apparently the traveling public preferred acute indigestion to
being bored.

Armitage, looking incredibly cool in his grey suit, and by some miracle,
still immaculate after a forenoon of dusty travel, laid down his
magazine, and turned inquiringly toward his mother. Mrs. Armitage, who
was approaching fifty and two hundred simultaneously—the latter numeral
standing for pounds avoirdupois—negatived his unspoken suggestion by a
slow shake of her head.

“Hadn’t you better have a little something?” the son persisted. “Say a
sandwich and a glass of iced tea?”

“Heavens no, Ross. I’m only too thankful when duty and inclination
coincide. I ought never to eat luncheon and today I can’t. Run along.”

The young man rose, shook himself slightly, thereby obliterating every
suggestion of a wrinkle, and having set his panama at the prescribed
angle, saunteringly obeyed the spirit if not the letter of his mother’s
injunction. He was not hungry but like his fellows he thought of food
and drink as satisfactory devices for passing the time when there was
nothing better to do.

Between the Pullman in front and the diner at the rear of the train,
intervened a number of day coaches, in sultry summer weather the last
word in the discomfort of travel. Armitage entering the first, felt the
impulse of recoil which was his instinctive reaction against dirt and
ugliness. Every window in the car was open, and blended with the rank
odor of perspiration and the smell of stale fruit, was the stench of
coal gas. The aisle was strewn with sand that crunched under his tread.
The moist faces of the travelers were grimy with cinders. Most of the
men had removed their coats and collars, presenting to the coldly
critical regard of young Armitage an unedifying spectacle of gross
misery.

Almost as if a cool breeze had freshened the fetid atmosphere, Armitage
became aware of a girlish figure at the further end of the coach. She
sat erect, avoiding contact with the faded, cinder-blackened upholstery.
Yet her posture did not suggest discontent so much as expectancy. In
some vague fashion she reminded him of a bird, poised for flight. Every
line of the alert body proclaimed zest for adventure. He was half afraid
to look at her as he passed, for fear a closer inspection would
contradict the testimony of her virginal slenderness, and reveal the too
ardent responsiveness, repugnant to the sex of which hunters are made.

What he saw was oddly reassuring. In his inarticulate masculine fashion
he was aware of the short-comings of the cheap, shabby dress, but the
nearer view of the girl herself brought him again an impression of
something refreshing. She had removed her hat, which was fortunate, for
this showed her heavy, dead-black hair, parted in the middle and drawn
back plainly from the delicate oval of her face. She was pale and rather
thin, but neither quality suggested delicacy. Instead he received the
impression of intense vitality, of strength in reserve. She was looking
straight before her, not, it was clear, engrossed by the suspenders of
the fat traveling man in the next seat, but as if her ardent eyes saw
scenes of beauty invisible to the grosser senses. Armitage’s scrutiny
must have been more pronounced than he realized, for as he came abreast
of her, she half turned, and her fearless eyes flashed up at him.
Armitage looked away hastily, thrilled nevertheless, by that exchange of
glances.

In the dining car he easily forgot the vivid personality of his unknown
fellow traveler in favor of lamb chops and green peas. His leisurely
meal would have been enjoyable, except that across the table sat a
pimply individual whose noisome interest in the food he had partially
masticated roused Armitage to a resentment hardly less than murderous.
His determination to ignore the offensive animal was frustrated by his
morbid curiosity as to what the fellow was going to do next, and he was
continually finding out at the expense of his appetite.

When the hovering waiter offered him a menu card, as a tacit invitation
to order dessert, he shook his head. But he might have gratified his
youthful craving for sweets undisturbed, for as he paid his reckoning
the man opposite did the same. They rose simultaneously and Armitage
left the diner in the wake of the object of his aversion.

In his slow progress along the dirty aisles of the swaying train, the
thoughts of the young man ran ahead to the girl who had impressed him as
the embodiment of eager life. As he entered the coach she occupied, his
eyes strained toward her seat. The train had made one stop during his
meal, and he was apprehensive that her place might be empty. But it was
not empty, and Armitage stopped abruptly, with a sensation approaching
physical nausea. Apparently his had not been the only observant eyes.
The man he had mentally anathematized throughout the luncheon, now
wearing a smile unimpaired by the rakish tilt of his toothpick, was just
seating himself at the girl’s side. He stretched his arm along the back
of the seat, and crossed his legs, revealing socks of startling
brilliancy. Then his nasal voice, pitched to the note of playful
gallantry, made itself audible. “You goin’ far?”

The girl turned instantly, giving Armitage the benefit of a profile
eminently satisfactory, even though he was somewhat exacting in the
matter of profiles. A voice clear and unagitated, answered the question
with another. “Are you going to sit here?”

“Thought maybe I would. Thought you looked kind o’ lonesome.” The smile
became so open that the toothpick improved the opportunity to escape,
and was lost in the miscellaneous litter covering the floor.

“Then I’m going as far as another seat.”

The girl was on her feet, snatching at hat and jacket, and reaching up
to the rack overhead for the ungainly bundle wrapped in brown paper, her
sole substitute for a traveling bag. As she crowded past her temporary
seat-mate, Armitage addressed her: “May I help you with your package?”

She eyed him hard and for a tense moment he anticipated a rebuff as
vehement as that which had temporarily wilted his _vis-à-vis_ of the
dining car. But apparently her excitement had not impaired her power of
discrimination. Almost to Armitage’s surprise she yielded to him her
pathetic traveling equipment and moved lightly to a seat near the front
of the coach. Armitage placed her bundle on the rack overhead, lifted
his hat as she thanked him, and went on.

He resumed his seat in the Pullman wearing an expression that challenged
his mother’s curiosity.

[Illustration: “‘MAY I HELP YOU WITH YOUR PACKAGE?’”]

“It must have been a wonderful luncheon,” she mocked.

“Hardly that; just fair.”

“You look positively radiant.”

“I saw something just now that amused me.” Armitage described the
encounter between Beauty and the Beast with due regard for dramatic
values. His mother listened with unconcealed sympathy.

“Shameful rather than amusing,” was her verdict. “A self-respecting girl
should be protected against such experiences.”

“She impressed me as perfectly able to look out for herself.” Armitage
wore a reminiscent smile.

“Is she pretty, Ross?”

The son answered with a discretion beyond his years. “I don’t know. At
least her face is interesting.”

“Bring her in here,” Mrs. Armitage ordered impulsively. “I imagine she’s
some unsophisticated country girl, and it’s a pity for her to get the
idea that the world is made up of odious people. We’ll look after her
while she’s on the train.”

Armitage did not move. “I’m afraid she might be suspicious of my
motives,” he explained. “I’ve seen her give one fellow a calling down,
and I’m not anxious to have her try her hand on me.”

“Then I’ll go myself. But you must come with me to point her out.”

Armitage’s conviction that his mother would recognize the heroine of his
story at a glance proved well founded, for without even looking to him
for confirmation, she went straight to the seat occupied by the shabby
little traveler. He noted with interest that the girl showed no
hesitancy regarding the invitation, and hardly seemed surprised. She
followed his mother unquestioningly and he followed her, carrying her
uncouth bundle, and concealing under a nonchalant air, a secret
excitement over this unexpected development.

In the sleeping-car, seated opposite the two women, he resigned himself
to being ignored, and retaliated by making the best possible use of his
ears and eyes. The girl began by disclaiming the need of protection. He
wasn’t anybody to be afraid of. That fresh sort just needed to be
squelched good and proper and they’d stay squelched. She lifted luminous
eyes to the gracious presence beside her. “But I’m glad to talk to you
as long as you’re so kind. I want to ask somebody about a place to stay
until I get work.”

“You’re going to the city, then?”

“Yes.”

“Have you no relatives or friends there? It is a serious step for a girl
of your age to go to a great city alone. Are your father and mother
living?”

“Yes, they’re living,” replied the girl, her inflection implying a
reserve which explained itself in a musing, “I suppose they _call_ it
life. But they don’t know about me,” she ended, “I’m running away.”

“My dear child!” The sudden stiffening of Mrs. Armitage’s figure lent
emphasis to her dismayed exclamation, and the girl’s voice took on a
conciliatory note. “They won’t be surprised. All of us run away, except
the ones who die. I’m the first girl, though,” she amended.

“I’m afraid you hardly realize what you are doing,” remonstrated Mrs.
Armitage. “Even if your home is not everything you could wish, almost
any home is better than none.” Her brief hesitation evidently ended in
the decision that the girl’s outspoken confession justified her in
similar frankness. “Are your father and mother unkind to you?”

The emotion that swept the girl’s face awakened in Armitage the uneasy
apprehension that she was going to cry. “My mother’s the salt of the
earth,” she said in a strangled voice. “She’s done everything and borne
everything a woman could. That’s one reason I’m running away. When I can
earn enough to send for her, it’ll be the happiest day of my life.”

“Then your father is cruel?”

The girl’s reflective pause impressed Armitage as indicating a judicial
quality of mind not always considered feminine.

“I don’t know whether he’s cruel or not. I guess you have to mean it to
be cruel, don’t you? A mowing machine isn’t cruel because it goes ahead
cutting down daisies and clover and grass, and leaving just stubble
behind it. Well—that’s father. If he really was cruel,” she
philosophized after a minute, “there might be a chance of his being
ashamed some time. But he’ll never be that, and he’ll never be
different.”

Mrs. Armitage temporized by changing the subject. “Do you wish to go
into domestic service?”

An illuminating flash of fun sparkled through the girl’s air of
seriousness. “Well, no. Of course it’s the only thing I know how to do.
Maybe that’s the reason I’d rather do something else.”

“She’s fed up with housework,” Armitage interpreted to his mother’s
frowning perplexity.

The girl digested the unfamiliar slang, then smiled appreciatively.
“Yes, I guess I am, but that isn’t all. Whatever I do now, I’m going to
get away from it as soon as I can. It’ll be just a starter, and it seems
as if the hardest thing in the world to live down was working as a hired
girl. Don’t you think so?”

Mrs. Armitage, profoundly shocked, refused to subscribe to any such
heretical sentiment.

“’Tisn’t always so in the country,” the girl acknowledged. “A neighbor
of ours worked out and she got engaged to the son of the folks she
worked for, when he came home from college for his summer vacation. And
the old people were pleased to death about it. But I thought maybe city
folks looked at such things differently.”

Armitage grinned impudently at his mother, who affected to be unaware of
his existence. Unconscious of their by-play, their companion continued,
“But anyway I don’t want to be shut up in somebody’s kitchen. I want to
find out what the world’s like and what people are like—and what I’m
like myself.”

Apparently Mrs. Armitage regarded this as hopeless. “You haven’t told us
your name yet,” she said, as if desirous of bringing the conversation
back to a safe and sane basis.

The girl’s hesitation suggested to Armitage that she was planning to
give a name not her own, but when it left her lips, she spoke it glibly,
“Cynthia Ayres.”

“How pretty!”

“Do you like it?” She showed a pleasure that seemed illogical till she
explained. “The Ayres is an old story but I’ve just made up my mind to
be Cynthia.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Father named me Keziah. There’s always been a Keziah in the family,
grandmothers and great-grandmothers, ever so far back, and he tacked it
on to me. Keziah! And they call me Kizzie or Kiz at home.” Her lips
tightened grimly. “I’ve made up my mind to have everything beautiful
that’s to be had—if I can get it—and it looks like a beautiful name is
just about the easiest thing to get. So from today on, I’m Cynthia
Ayres.”

“Good for you!” Armitage emphasized his approval by a shout of laughter,
but there was ambiguity in his mother’s smile. She recognized in Keziah
Ayres—alias Cynthia—the spirit of revolt against which conservatism
instinctively braces itself.

Though they talked intermittently through the remaining hours of their
journey, they made little progress beyond this point. Apparently Keziah
Ayres had reached the end of her self-revelation, and Mrs. Armitage’s
impulse to proffer good advice spent itself in the resolve to seek out
the representative of the Traveler’s Aid, on their arrival, and turn
over to her this perplexing problem. But before they parted, she gave
the girl her card. “If you should meet with any unlooked-for
difficulties,” she said kindly, “I shall be glad to help you. We are
only in town for a few days now, but after the first of October, you can
reach me at this address.”

The girl’s brown fingers closed on the slip of cardboard, but her eyes
went from the woman to the man, as if appealing from some vague
injustice. “I’m not expecting anything harder than I’m used to,” she
answered. “I guess I won’t have to trouble you.”

The city in mid-afternoon was hot and oppressive, and the drive to the
hotel where they were to spend a week was accomplished almost in
silence. That his mother’s thoughts ran parallel to his own was evident
to the young man when Mrs. Armitage broke a protracted silence. “You
didn’t think her pretty, Ross, but she really is something of a
beauty—of the Madonna type.”

“Madonna,” cried the son. “Why not Mary Magdalene?”

His mother’s indignation put him on the defensive. “I didn’t mean that
as it sounds. She’s a good girl—I’d take my oath on that—but she’s the
sort who wants to know the flavor of life. I wonder what she’ll make of
herself.”

That was Friday afternoon, and the following Sunday the newspapers
headlined the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. The flaring up of
international hostilities awakened little apprehension in the Armitage’s
circle. Some thought the conflict would be over in a week and others
gave it three months to run its course But before the three months were
up, the most stupidly optimistic knew the world was on fire.

For the next four years there was little time to think of Keziah—or
Cynthia—Ayres.