Alice Duer Miller

“ He leaned against the door jamb as a faun might lean against a tree, looking as a poet ought to look.
“Ah, Roe,” said Howieson, “I've been reading your verses.”
Jack smiled a slow embarrassed smile to mitigate the fact that he was not in the least embarrassed.
“I suppose it seems pretty foolish to you,” he said.
This answer annoyed the senior partner. He did not wish to appear as a man to whom all adventure seemed foolish; indeed, he was not such a man.
He drew his head sharply to one side.
“You young people,” he said, “you don't think anyone over fifty has any human feelings at all. ”

“ When he got back to the car Millie had just a moment to greet him as a hero before it developed that the milk was no use to the baby unless it could be heated.
“That will be very difficult,” said the doctor.
Millie rolled her lovely eyes up at him under the dissipated hat.
“You can think of some way, can't you, Jack?” she said.
“Certainly,” he answered, glad to show that a poet has more invention than a scientist. “There must be a fire in the engine.” He wanted to sit down and demand Millie's undivided attention while he described to her the transformation in the ogress. ”

“ She said that if there were any milk in the house she would not give it to tramps who came begging at that hour of the night.
“It isn't for myself,” said Jack, “but we have a sick baby on that stalled train, and it seems rather likely to die if it isn't fed.”
“A baby!” cried the woman.
And suddenly she changed completely. From a menacing ogress she changed into a friendly mass of humanity. She opened the door, led him to the stove, and began hurrying to and fro on her large flat, felt-slippered feet, looking for a bottle that he could slip in his pocket. ”

“ The only doctor on the train was an elderly man comfortably sleeping in a Pullman chair. He did not seem eager to exercise his art, but he grew more interested when he saw Millicent. He assumed the child to be hers, and evidently thought her a helpless, beautiful, inexperienced young mother. Jack could not bear anyone to suppose his lovely girl had any connection whatsoever with that hideous child, but when he began to explain to the doctor Millie kicked him. She told him later that the doctor was the kind of man who would take more interest in the baby if he thought it was hers. ”

“ Funnily enough they were just the places Howieson had always wanted to go to, and their names on a printed page made him restless. He found he was asking himself that question which every successful business man—and Howieson was very successful—spends his waking hours trying to avoid, namely: Is business an end in itself or a means to an end, and if a means to an end, what is that end, and when is it reached? ”

“ And then they began to play like children, telling each other stories, and imagining what it would be like if some day Millicent sailed into the harbor of Dominica on a yacht—the yacht of her millionaire husband. ”

“ He loved her, they loved each other; and he had been able to tell her, as if his spirit had been speaking directly to hers, that he would always love her, and that he would never see her again. Thus they could always hold each other—pure and young and passionately in love. People died for romance ”

“ Everyone knows that locomotive engineers are men not to be approached unadvisedly or lightly, and an engineer with his train in difficulties is especially formidable. This one was just climbing back into his cab after a consultation with the conductor, and swung round quickly, aware of Jack just behind him. ”

“ Howieson—to lose even the desire to be free—and that's the worst bondage of all.'”
“Look here, young man, you're a little bit irritating,” said the senior partner, “with your assumption that because a man doesn't do a thing he has no desire to do it. There's a difference, let me tell you, between being free and being a damned fool. Freedom! What's that kind of freedom going to get you?” ”

“ Phil shook him warmly by the hand, but Jack could see that his mind was still struggling with the life-insurance problem.
Something more than an hour later his train, a little behind time, was approaching Millie's station. He left his seat and went to the platform. It was bitterly cold, and the wind was blowing a hurricane. He leaned out, holding his hat on. It was hard to see through the snow. He scanned the whole length of the deserted platform. No one was there; the light stood alone. She hadn't come. ”

“ It was all very well, he thought, as he penciled memoranda and signed his name, for a successful man of fifty-five, with his work practically done, to think of slipping away on a voyage of discovery, but it was quite different for a youngster to throw away his chances at the beginning. ”