IV.

The joyous visit of a week, which has been here so poorly recovered from
the past, came to an end, and the host went with his guest to the station
in as much vehicular magnificence as had marked his going to meet him
there. Harte was no longer the alarming portent of the earlier time, but
an experience of unalloyed delight. You must love a person whose worst
trouble-giving was made somehow a favor by his own unconsciousness of the
trouble, and it was a most flattering triumph to have got him in time, or
only a little late, to so many luncheons and dinners. If only now he
could be got to the train in time the victory would be complete, the
happiness of the visit without a flaw. Success seemed to crown the
fondest hope in this respect. The train had not yet left the station;
there stood the parlor-car which Harte had seats in; and he was followed
aboard for those last words in which people try to linger out pleasures
they have known together. In this case the sweetest of the pleasures had
been sitting up late after those dinners, and talking them over, and then
degenerating from that talk into the mere giggle and making giggle which
Charles Lamb found the best thing in life. It had come to this as the
host and guest sat together for those parting moments, when Harte
suddenly started up in the discovery of having forgotten to get some
cigars. They rushed out of the train together, and after a wild descent
upon the cigar-counter of the restaurant, Harte rushed back to his car.
But by this time the train was already moving with that deceitful
slowness of the departing train, and Harte had to clamber up the steps of
the rearmost platform. His host clambered after, to make sure that he
was aboard, which done, he dropped to the ground, while Harte drew out of
the station, blandly smiling, and waving his hand with a cigar in it, in