His business must come first, he
decided. Having settled this point to his temporary
satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper and leaned back in
his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal matters, by
learning what was going on in the world at large.
No sooner had his eye scanned the first headline than he was
startled by a boisterous greeting from a fellow traveller, who
was just passing down the aisle.
"Hello, Hardy!" cried his well meaning acquaintance. "Where are
you bound for?"
"Detroit," answered Alfred, annoyed by the sudden interruption.
"Where's the missus?" asked the intruder.
"Chicago," was Alfred's short reply.
"THAT'S a funny thing," declared the convivial spirit, not
guessing how funny it really was. "You know," he continued, so
loud that everyone in the vicinity could not fail to hear him,
"the last time I met you two, you were on your honeymoon--on THIS
VERY TRAIN," and with that the fellow sat himself down,
uninvited, by Alfred's side and started on a long list of
compliments about "the fine little girl" who had in his opinion
done Alfred a great favour when she consented to tie herself to a
"dull, money-grubbing chap" like him.
"So," thought Alfred, "this is the way the world sees us." And
he began to frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself.
Again he told himself that he was right; but his friend's
thoughtless words had planted an uncomfortable doubt in his mind,
and when he left the train to drive to his hotel, he was thinking
very little about the new business relations upon which he was
entering in Detroit, and very much about the domestic relations
which he had just severed in Chicago.
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