Cass alighted,
placed Miss Mortimer in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the
vehicle. It was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half awakened
passengers. There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up
to, and abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls
and rugs. There was a slight movement among the multitudinous
enwrappings, and then the figure turned to him and said dryly, "Good
morning!" It was Miss Porter!
"Have you been long here?" he stammered.
"All night."
He would have given worlds to leave her at that moment. He would have
jumped from the starting coach to save himself any explanation of the
embarrassment he was furiously conscious of showing, without, as he
believed, any adequate cause. And yet, like all inexperienced,
sensitive men, he dashed blindly into that explanation; worse, he even
told his secret at once, then and there, and then sat abashed and
conscience-stricken, with an added sense of its utter futility.
"And this," summed up the young girl, with a slight shrug of her pretty
shoulders, "is _your May_?"
Cass would have recommenced his story.
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