"So you can't go-it's too bad! We had hoped that
when you really saw us on the way you would relent,"
said Mrs. Taylor.
"But there are many reasons; and above all Sister
Theresa needs me."
It was the voice of Olivia, a little lower, a little more
restrained than I had known it.
"But think of the rose gardens that are waiting for
us out there!" said the other lady. They were showing
her the deference that elderly women always have for
pretty girls.
"Alas, and again alas!" exclaimed Olivia. "Please
don't make it harder for me than necessary. But I gave
my promise a year ago to spend these holidays in Cincinnati."
She ignored me wholly, and after shaking hands with
the ladies returned to the other platform. I wondered
whether she was overlooking Taylor on purpose to cut
me.
Taylor was still at his lecture on the needs of our
American merchant marine when Pickering passed hurriedly,
crossed the track and began speaking earnestly
to the girl in gray.
"The American flag should command the seas. What
we need is not more battle-ships but more freight carriers-"
Taylor was saying.
But I was watching Olivia Gladys Armstrong. In a
long skirt, with her hair caught up under a gray toque
that matched her coat perfectly, she was not my Olivia
of the tam-o'-shanter, who had pursued the rabbit; nor
yet the unsophisticated school-girl, who had suffered my
idiotic babble; nor, again, the dreamy rapt organist of
the chapel. She was a grown woman with at least
twenty summers to her credit, and there was about her
an air of knowing the world, and of not being at all a
person one would make foolish speeches to. She spoke
to Pickering gravely. Once she smiled dolefully and
shook her head, and I vaguely strove to remember where
I had seen that look in her eyes before. Her gold beads,
which I had once carried in my pocket, were clasped
tight about the close collar of her dress; and I was glad,
very glad, that I had ever touched anything that belonged
to her.
"As the years go by we are going to dominate trade
more and more. Our manufactures already lead the
world, and what we make we've got to sell, haven't we?"
demanded Taylor.
"Certainly, sir," I answered warmly.
Who was Olivia Gladys Armstrong and what was
Arthur Pickering's business with her? And what was
it she had said to me that evening when I had found her
playing on the chapel organ? So much happened that
day that I had almost forgotten, and, indeed, I had
tried to forget I had made a fool of myself for the edification
of an amusing little school-girl. "I see you
prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you," she had
said; but if I had thought of this at all it had been
with righteous self-contempt. Or, I may have flattered
my vanity with the reflection that she had eyed me-
her hero, perhaps-with wistful admiration across the
wall.