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People Like That by Kate Langley Bosher
page 191 of 235 (81%)
more festive, and that I'll have to wear your good clothes, but we
mustn't run risks merely for pride. Take your dress off quickly and
give it to me. Don't look at me, but hurry."

Madeleine's mind does not work as quickly as some people's, and a
little time was lost in explaining that any description to which she
would answer would have to apply to me, not her. In consequence the
cab was at the door before she was fully garmented in my plainest
clothes and I arrayed in her beautiful ones, and regretfully she
looked at me. I am taller and slenderer than Madeleine, but fashion
was in my favor, and the absence of fit and shortness of skirt gave
emphasis of adherence to its requirements. I looked the part. She
didn't.

At the station Tom and Selwyn were waiting and their puzzled
incomprehension was even greater than Madeleine's had been.
Explanations included a few suggestions as to the wisdom of our
separating and, the men agreeing, Selwyn and I went in the Pullman,
and poor little rich Madeleine and Tom to a day-coach, where crying
babies and peanut-hulls and close air and torn papers would have made
them wretchedly unhappy had they not been happily unconscious of
them. I was sorry for them, but marriage involves much. As the
train pulled out I waved from the window to Mrs. Mundy, who, on the
platform, waved back with one hand and with the other wiped her eyes.
Mrs. Mundy loves me, but she, too, does not always approve of me.

Travel evidently was light. The sleeper in which we found ourselves
had barely two-thirds of the berths made up, and, the rest of the
seats being empty, we took ours in a corner where in an undertone we
could talk and not disturb others. Taking off Madeleine's handsome
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