He paused to say:
"Where you-all want to go to--a taxicab?"
Adna, who was a little nervous about his property, answered with
some asperity:
"No, we don't need any hack to git to Biltmore's."
"Nossah!" said the red-cap.
"Right across the street, ain't it?"
"Yassah!" The porter chuckled. The mention of the family's destination
had cheered him a little. He might get a tip, after all. You couldn't
always sometimes tell by a man's clothes how he tipped.
While Kedzie stood watching the red-cap bestow the various parcels
under his arms and along his fingers, a man bumped into her and
murmured:
"Sorry!"
She turned and said, "Huh?"
He did not look around. She did not see his face. It was the first
conversation between Jim Dyckman and Kedzie Thropp.
Charity Coe, when the train stopped, had flatly refused to walk up
the station platform with Jim Dyckman. She had not only virtue, but
St. Paul's idea of the importance of avoiding even the appearance
of evil. She would not budge from the car till Jim had gone. He
was forced to leave her at last.
He swung through the crowd in a fury, jostling and begging pardon
and staring over the heads of the pack to see if Cheever were at
the barrier. He jolted Kedzie Thropp among others, apologized,
and thought no more of her.
Cheever had not come to meet his wife. Her telegram was waiting
for him at his official home; he was at his other residence.
When Dyckman saw that no one was there to welcome the fagged-out
Charity, he paused and waited for her himself.
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