Page:Left to Themselves (1891).djvu/69

 In this case it was their failure to be aware of apparently a very simple matter—the conduct of another passenger.

There sat back to back with Gerald, the tall chair doing its usual office of a screen, a strikingly handsome and well-dressed man of about forty years of age, who wore eye-glasses and was running over the contents of a newspaper when they settled down. Before long this well-appointed traveler, in changing the position of his chair, happened to let his eye fall on Gerald's traveling-bag lying overturned in the aisle, and painted, as to the bottom, in large black letters with the name, "Gerald B. Saxton, Jun., New York City."

A name—only a name! But what mysterious recollections, what quick impulses, it must have stirred up to vivid life in the mind of that grave traveler sitting so close to the fair-haired owner of the satchel and his friend! A slight start, a frown showing itself between his level eyebrows, a sudden sharpness of attention to the speakers beside him, and his sinking himself, little by little, down into his chair, while at the same time he drew the Herald over his face as if in an after-breakfast doze—these