The guard, who had promised to take them out of the
carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be,
he was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times
up and down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader,
can you not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of
catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not
stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young
lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last
moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw
myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake
of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is
an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and
every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of
the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes
closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to
Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I?
And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same
interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often
as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between
us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our
lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an
excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day.
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