No, Mr. Magee decided he would not. The train that had just roared away
into the dusk had not brought him from the region of skyscrapers and
derby hats for deeds of knight errantry up state. Anyhow, the girl's
tears were none of his business. A railway station was a natural place
for grief--a field of many partings, upon whose floor fell often in
torrents the tears of those left behind. A friend, mayhap a lover, had
been whisked off into the night by the relentless five thirty-four
local. Why not a lover? Surely about such a dainty trim figure as this
courtiers hovered as moths about a flame. Upon a tender intimate sorrow
it was not the place of an unknown Magee to intrude. He put his hand
gently upon the latch of the door.

And yet--dim and heartless and cold was the interior of that
waiting-room. No place, surely, for a gentleman to leave a lady
sorrowful, particularly when the lady was so alluring. Oh, beyond
question, she was most alluring. Mr. Magee stepped softly to the ticket
window and made low-voiced inquiry of the man inside.

"What's she crying about?" he asked.

A thin sallow face, on the forehead of which a mop of ginger-colored
hair lay listlessly, was pressed against the bars.

"Thanks," said the ticket agent. "I get asked the same old questions so
often, one like yours sort of breaks the monotony. Sorry I can't help
you. She's a woman, and the Lord only knows why women cry. And sometimes
I reckon even He must be a little puzzled. Now, my wife--"

"I think I'll ask her," confided Mr. Magee in a hoarse whisper.

"Oh, I wouldn't," advised the man behind the bars. "It's best to let 'em
alone. They stop quicker if they ain't noticed."

"But she's in trouble," argued Billy Magee.

"And so'll you be, most likely," responded the cynic, "if you interfere.
No, siree! Take my advice. Shoot old Asquewan's rapids in a barrel if
you want to, but keep away from crying women."

The heedless Billy Magee, however, was already moving across the
unscrubbed floor with chivalrous intention.

The girl's trim shoulders no longer heaved so unhappily. Mr. Magee,
approaching, thought himself again in the college yard at dusk, with the
great elms sighing overhead, and the fresh young voices of the glee club
ringing out from the steps of a century-old building. What were the
words they sang so many times?

"Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day."

He regretted that he could not make use of them. They h