Excuse Me! Part 7

Miss Anne Gattle, seated in Mrs. Jimmie Wellington's seat, had not heard Mr. Jimmie Wellington's sketch of his wife. But she needed hardly more than a glance to satisfy herself that she and Mrs. Jimmie were as hopelessly antipathetic as only two polite women can be.

Mrs. Jimmie was accounted something of a sn.o.b in Chicago society, but perhaps the missionary was a trifle the sn.o.bbisher of the two when they met.

Miss Gattle could overlook a hundred vices in a Zulu queen more easily than a few in a fellow countrywoman. She did not like Mrs. Jimmie, and she was proud of it.

When the porter said, "I'm afraid you got this lady's seat," Miss Gattle shot one glance at the intruder and rose stiffly. "Then I suppose I'll have to----"

"Oh, please don't go, there's plenty of room," Mrs. Wellington insisted, pressing her to remain. This nettled Miss Gattle still more, but she sank back, while the porter piled up expensive traveling-bags and hat boxes till there was hardly a place to sit. But even at that Mrs. Jimmie felt called on to apologize:

"I haven't brought much luggage. How I'll ever live four days with this, I can't imagine. It will be such a relief to get my trunks at Reno."

"Reno?" echoed Miss Gattle. "Do you live there?"

"Well, theoretically, yes."

"I don't understand you."

"I've got to live there to get it."

"To get it? Oh!" A look of sudden and dreadful realization came over the missionary. Mrs. Wellington interpreted it with a smile of gay defiance:

"Do you believe in divorces?"

Anne Gattle stuck to her guns. "I must say I don't. I think a law ought to be pa.s.sed stopping them."

"So do I," Mrs. Wellington amiably agreed, "and I hope they'll pa.s.s just such a law--after I get mine." Then she ventured a little shaft of her own. "You don't believe in divorces. I judge you've never been married."

"Not once!" The spinster drew herself up, but Mrs. Wellington disarmed her with an unexpected bouquet:

"Oh, lucky woman! Don't let any heartless man delude you into taking the fatal step."

Anne Gattle was nothing if not honest. She confessed frankly: "I must say that n.o.body has made any violent efforts to compel me to. That's why I'm going to China."

"To China!" Mrs. Wellington gasped, hardly believing her ears. "My dear! You don't intend to marry a laundryman?"

"The idea! I'm going as a missionary."

"A missionary? Why leave Chicago?" Mrs. Wellington's eye softened more or less convincingly: "Oh, lovely! How I should dote upon being a missionary. I really think that after I get my divorce I might have a try at it. I had thought of a convent, but being a missionary must be much more exciting." She dismissed the dream with an abrupt shake of the head. "Excuse me, but do you happen to have any matches?"

"Matches! I never carry them!"

"They never have matches in the women's room, and I've used my last one."

Miss Gattle took another reef in her tight lips. "Do you smoke cigarettes?"

Mrs. Wellington's echoed disgust with disgust: "Oh, no, indeed. I loathe them. I have the most dainty little cigars. Did you ever try one?"

Miss Gattle stiffened into one exclamation point: "Cigars! Me!"

Mrs. Jimmie was so well used to being disapproved of that it never disturbed her. She went on as if the face opposite were not alive with horror: "I should think that cigars might be a great consolation to a lady missionary in the long lone hours of--what do missionaries do when they're not missionarying?"

"That depends."

There was something almost spiritual in Mrs. Jimmie's beatific look: "I can't tell you what consolation my cigars have given me in my troubles. Mr. Wellington objected--but then Mr. Wellington objected to nearly everything I did. That's why I am forced to this dreadful step."

"Cigars?"

"Divorces."

"Divorces!"

"Well, this will be only my second--my other was such a nuisance. I got that from Jimmie, too. But it didn't take. Then we made up and remarried. Rather odd, having a second honeymoon with one's first husband. But remarriage didn't succeed any better. Jimmie fell off the water-wagon with an awful splash, and he quite misunderstood my purely platonic interest in Sammy Whitcomb, a nice young fellow with a fool of a wife. Did you ever meet Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb--no? Oh, but you are a lucky woman! Indeed you are! Well, when Jimmie got jealous, I just gave him up entirely. I'm running away to Reno. I sent a note to my husband's club, saying that I had gone to Europe, and he needn't try to find me. Poor fellow, he will. He'll hunt the continent high and low for me, but all the while I'll be in Nevada. Rather good joke on little Jimmie, eh?"

"Excruciating!"

"But now I must go. Now I must go. I've really become quite addicted to them."

"Divorces?"

"Cigars. Do stay here till I come back. I have so much to say to you."

Miss Gattle shook her head in despair. She could understand a dozen heathen dialects better than the speech of so utter a foreigner as her fellow-countrywoman. Mrs. Jimmie hastened away, rather pleased at the shocks she had administered. She enjoyed her own electricity.

In the corridor she administered another thrill--this time to a tall young man--a stranger, as alert for flirtation as a weasel for mischief. He huddled himself and his suitcases into as flat a s.p.a.ce as possible, murmuring:

"These corridors are so narrow, aren't they?"

"Aren't they?" said Mrs. Jimmie. "So sorry to trouble you."

"Don't mention it."

She pa.s.sed on, their glances fencing like playful foils. Then she paused:

"Excuse me. Could you lend me a match? They never have matches in the Women's Room."

He succeeded in producing a box after much s.h.i.+fting of burdens, and he was rewarded with a look and a phrase:

"You have saved my life."

He started to repeat his "Don't mention it," but it seemed inappropriate, so he said nothing, and she vanished behind a door. He turned away, saying to himself that it promised to be a pleasant journey. He was halted by another voice--another woman's voice:

"Pardon me, but is this the car for Reno?"

He turned to smile, "I believe so!" Then his eyes widened as he recognized the speaker.

"Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb!"

It promised to be a curious journey.