ssipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.

As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
his direction.

When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
looked up full into his face.

Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
interest.

As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
profile;