Zona Gale

“ When distinguished-looking persons do their traveling I cannot imagine, for whenever I travel, all the ill-equipped beings seem to come forth and the charming people to stay hermetically sealed at home."
"You might take out the box of daguerreotypes," suggested Pelleas, "and set them on the opposite seat. Then you need look at nothing but distinction."
I smiled in approbation. That delightful company of old daguerreotypes in leather cases and the three miniatures in velvet bags which I was carrying to Lisa for her cabinet—what perfect traveling companions they would make, to be sure! ”

“ The Boy drew the book from his bag, a small, discreet book of good birth and antecedents of charming certainty. She took it lingeringly, her eyes meeting his as their hands met. And as she opened the book, the train slipped into motion, and the City shambled back about its business on the map.
"Now it is too late—now it is too late not to go!" said the Amazing Lady exultantly, in her low resonance. "Whether I go to Channing or New York, it is too late to go back." ”

“ Pelleas smiled and bought a paper and went off to the smoking compartment. Although he has not smoked in years and can never read in a pitching coach, yet Pelleas finds paper and smoking compartment unwritten laws of his manhood. One becomes very tenacious of one's ways of youth when they no longer besiege one.
Almost at once the train pulled into a station, all of blackened brick and clanging breakfast gongs. ”

“ Moreover, I have grown to suspect that my interest in romance is simply the helpless curiosity of an old woman in whose heart a glint of moonlight some way persists, in spite of all these years of the practical sun. Still, it is a very terrible thing to be old and not to tell others what one has learned, since to learn is the only possible compensation for growing old. ”

“ NOTHING can exceed the air of satisfaction which pervades a sleeping car just after the berths have been made up in the morning. The night is safely past, dressing in one's section has been got through, and one's destination leaps upon one from out the sheathing miles. Pelleas and I came in from breakfast in the dining car and shared in the general cheer. ”

“ As well expect a pot of primroses to find fellowship with a gazing crystal.
"Shall I leave you at Channing?" she went on to the Boy. "Shall I get off at Channing, or shall I go with you to New York and face them all? Channing—I hate Channing!" she burst out. "Why should I go to Channing? What do they know about all the things that I like best? And what is there in living if you can't live with people who like some of the things that you like? ”

“ Pelleas gravely corrected.
On the train it is astonishing what frivolous talk absorbs one. I aver that the two young women occupying the section at the back of ours talked for four hundred miles about almost nothing. Not that this is impossible in stationary moments, however; for to talk of almost nothing is a satisfaction which many derive from the most unpromising subjects. ”

“ Love is a famous voyager and has an invariable idea that because things are intrinsically wrong in the West, there will be smooth sailing east of West But in my heart I knew, as I heard their words, that no geography and no created space could make the future fair for these two. ”

“ While I hesitated, certain that anyone but Pelleas would have looked upon the idea as mad enough, the Amazing Lady, almost pathetically testing her art to allure the Boy the more deeply, sank back,with a sigh, to her window corner.
"Trains always make me sleepy," she said, with lids heavy above her really fine eyes. ”

“ Instantly I opened Pelleas's suit case and took out the box of daguerreotypes. It was a box of—I had almost said withered—heliotrope velvet, clasped with thin silver, and, within, a band of faded satin ribbon wrapped the cases. I laid the ribbon upon the dark background of the seat before me—no one would suppose what a background for art is the velvet of Pullman cars—and delicately, one by one, I dusted each case and laid it open on the pale satin. ”