All this, if the schedule was followed to the
letter and bad weather or accident did not intervene. The shipping
page of the New York Herald became the only part of it he read. He
scanned it daily with anxiety. Did it not tell him of his letter
speeding over seas? For him no news was good news, telling him
that all was well. He kept himself informed of the temperature of
Paris, the temperature of Nice, and worried over the floods in
Belgium. From the gloomy offices of the railroad he held all
Europe under the closest scrutiny.
Then came the time when his letter was calculated to arrive. In
his mind's eye he saw the Grand Hotel at Vevey, a Waldorf-Astoria
set in snowy mountains with attendant Swiss yodelling on
inaccessible summits, or getting marvels of melody out of little
hand-bells, or making cuckoo clocks in top-swollen chalets. The
letter would be brought to her on a silver salver, exciting
perhaps the stately curiosity of Mrs. Quintan and questions
embarrassing to answer. It was a pity he used that railroad
envelope! Or would it lie beside her plate at breakfast, as clumsy
and unrefined as himself, amid a heap of scented notes from
members of the nobility? Ah, if he could but see her face and read
his fate in her blue eyes!
When he returned home that night there was a singular-looking
telegram awaiting him on the hall table. His hands shook as he
took it up for it suddenly came over him that it was a cable. It
had never occurred to him that she might do that; that there was
anything more expeditious than the mail.
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