【英文原著类】THE SCARLET CAR(红色轿车).pdf

THE SCARLET CAR
THE SCARLET CAR
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
TO NED STONE
1
THE SCARLET CAR
I THE JAIL-BREAKERS
For a long time it had been arranged they all should go to the Harvard
and Yale game in Winthrop's car. It was perfectly well understood.
Even Peabody, who pictured himself and Miss Forbes in the back of the
car, with her brother and Winthrop in front, condescended to approve. It
was necessary to invite Peabody because it was his great good fortune to
be engaged to Miss Forbes. Her brother Sam had been invited, not only
because he could act as chaperon for his sister, but because since they
were at St. Paul's, Winthrop and he, either as participants or spectators,
had never missed going together to the Yale-Harvard game. And
Beatrice Forbes herself had been invited because she was herself.
When at nine o'clock on the morning of the game, Winthrop stopped
the car in front of her door, he was in love with all the world. In the
November air there was a sting like frost-bitten cider, in the sky there was
a brilliant, beautiful sun, in the wind was the tingling touch of three ice-
chilled rivers. And in the big house facing Central Park, outside of which
his prancing steed of brass and scarlet chugged and protested and trembled
with impatience, was the most wonderful girl in all the world. It was true
she was engaged to be married, and not to him. But she was not yet
married. And to-day it would be his privilege to carry her through the
State of New York and the State of Connecticut, and he would snatch
glimpses of her profile rising from the rough fur collar, of her wind-blown
hair, of the long, lovely lashes under the gray veil.
"`Shall be together, breathe and ride, so, one day more am I deified;'"
whispered the young man in the Scarlet Car; "`who knows but the world
may end to-night?'"
As he waited at the curb, other great touring-cars, of every speed and
shape, in the mad race for the Boston Post Road, and the town of N