When the thing was at its hottest, I bolted. Tom, like the darling he
is--(Yes, you are, old fellow, you\'re as precious to me as--as you are to the
police--if they could only get their hands on you)--well, Tom drew off the
crowd, having passed the old gentleman\'s watch to me, and I made for the
women\'s rooms.
The station was crowded, as it always is in the afternoon, and in a
minute I was strolling into the big, square room, saying slowly to myself
to keep me steady:
"Nancy, you\'re a college girl--just in from Bryn Mawr to meet your
papa. Just see if your hat\'s on straight."
I did, going up to the big glass and looking beyond my excited face to
the room behind me. There sat the woman who can never nurse her baby
except where everybody can see her, in a railroad station. There was the
woman who\'s always hungry, nibbling chocolates out of a box; and the
woman fallen asleep, with her hat on the side, and hairpins dropping out of
her hair; and the woman who\'s beside herself with fear that she\'ll miss her
train; and the woman who is taking notes about the other women\'s rigs.
And--
And I didn\'t like the look of that man with the cap who opened the
swinging door a bit and peeped in. The women\'s waiting-room is no
place for a man--nor for a girl who\'s got somebody else\'s watch inside her
waist. Luckily, my back was toward him, but just as the door swung
back he might have caught the reflection of my face in a mirror hanging
opposite to the big one.