he was as chivalrous to
her as though she had been the woman of his dreams; but she spent much
of the time weeping and hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings,
when he came home to the meal that she prepared each day with a greater
skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he would not break the
silence throughout the evening, and he did not dream that he had
forgotten her. His new express engine became his life. He drove her,
cared for her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There were no
bad notes against him at the office. His records were excellent, and
Rainsford had the satisfaction of knowing that the man whom he had
recommended was in the right place. The irony of it all was that his
marrying Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it
tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He had meditated
as he drove his engine, facing the miles before him as the machine ate
them up, and these miles began to take him into other countries. There
was a far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used to glance
up at the telegraph wires and poles they became to him masts and
riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and from his own window of his
little tenement apartment of two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the
old river boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that
hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had kissed ports
whose names were thrilling, and in the nest he had made his own,
thinking to rest there, his growing wings began to unprison and the nest
to be too small. There was no intoxication in the speed of his
locomotive to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated
and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of his locomotive
delighted him. She flew to his hand, and the speed gave him joy.

At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the glow and the
glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure skies, olive and grape
vines brought their enchantment around Fairfax, until No. 111 stood in
an enchanted country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or
blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with Rainsford. The
agent became his friend, and one Sunday Fairfax led him into the Delavan
House, and George Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup
on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the moment
serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor to Antony.

"Yas, _sah_, Mistah Kunnel