I Married A Dead Man Read Online Free PDF

had to wait on line in the aisle outside, the door inhospitably closed in their faces.
                    "Just so we won't sit down to the table still not knowing each other's names," the young wife said, cheerfully unfolding her napkin, "he's Hazzard, Hugh, and I'm Hazzard, Patrice." Her dimples showed up in depreciation. "Funny name, isn't it?"
                    "Be more respectful," her young spouse growled, without lifting his forehead from the bill of fare. "I'm just trying you out for it I haven't decided yet whether I'll let you keep it or not."
                    "It's mine now," was the feminine logic he got. "I haven't decided whether I'll let you keep it or not"
                    "What's your name?" she asked their guest.
                    "Georgesson," the girl said. "Helen Georgesson."
                    She smiled hesitantly at the two of them. Gave him the outside edge of her smile, gave her the center of it. It wasn't a very broad smile, but it had depth and gratitude, the little there was of it.
                    "You've both been awfully friendly to me," she said.
                    She looked down at the menu card she held spread between her hands, so they wouldn't detect the flicker of emotion that made her lips tremble for a moment
                    "It must be an awful lot of fun to be--you," she murmured wistfully.
     
     
    5
     
                    By the time the overhead lights in their car had been put out, around ten, so that those who wanted to sleep could do so, they were already old and fast friends. They were already "Patrice" and "Helen" to one another; this, as might have been surmised, at Patrice's instigation. Friendship blooms quickly in the hothouse atmosphere of travel; within the space of hours, sometimes, it's already full-blown. Then just as suddenly is snapped off short, by the inevitable separation of the travelers. It seldom if ever survives that separation for long. That is why, on ships and trains, people have fewer reticences with one another, they exchange confidences more quickly, tell all about themselves; they will never have to see these same people again, and worry about what opinion they may have formed, whether good or bad.
                    The small, shaded, individual sidelights provided for each seat, that could be turned on or off at will, were still on for the most part, but the car was restfully dimmer and quieter, some of its occupants already dozing. Patrice's husband was in an inert, hat-shrouded state on the valise that again stood alongside his original seat, his crossed legs precariously slung upward to the top of the seat ahead. However, he seemed comfortable enough, judging by the sonorous sounds that escaped from inside his hat now and then. He had dropped out of their conversation fully an hour before, and, an unkind commentary this on the importance of men to women's conversations, to all appearances hadn't even been missed.
                    Patrice was acting the part of a look-out, her eyes watchfully and jealously fastened on a certain door, far down the aisle behind them, in the dim distance. To do this, she was kneeling erect on the seat, in reverse, staring vigilantly over the back of it. This somewhat unconventional position, however, did nothing whatever to inhibit her conversational flow, which proceeded as freely and blithely as ever. Only, owing to her elevated stance, the next seat back now shared the benefit of most of it, along with her own. Fortunately, however, its occupants were disqualified from any great amount of interest in it by two facts; they were both men, and they were both asleep.
                    A ripple of reflected light suddenly ran down the sleek chromium of the door that had her attention.
                    "She just came out," she