Ariel Custer (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
you,” said Ariel, rousing to her situation, “I haven’t any train, nor any friend. I’mthat is, I don’t knowWell, I’m not sure just what I’m going to do. I’ve got to think. I’ll just sit here a little while and get rested, I think.”
The young man frowned.
“I don’t like to leave you here alone till I’m sure you’re all right,” he said. “I’m not so sure you oughtn’t go to the hospital and let the doctor give you something. You had a hard fall. You must be bruised.”
“Oh, I’m quite all right, thank you,” she said with a wan little smile, but something in the whiteness of her cheek, the languor of her eye, made him reluctant to leave her thus.
“You ought to have something hot to drink right away,” he said suddenly. “Here, come this way.” He picked up the satchel and assisted her to her feet.
“Yes,” she said as if the suggestion were welcome. “But I don’t need to trouble you any further. Just show me where the restaurant is. I can walk quite well alone now.”
He took her arm firmly and guided her through a crowd of people who were hurrying to catch a train, and toward the leather doors of the dining room. “You’re not troubling me,” he said cheerily. “I’m tremendously hungry myself. I had a hard day and scarcely any time for lunch. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a bite myself, and then I can see if you’re able to be left to yourself.”
He seated her at a little white table and summoned a waiter. Ariel looked around anxiously at the palm-decked room and deft waiters. A meal in a place like this would cost more than she ought to afford from her scanty store, but what could she do? The man was very kind, and quite matter of fact. He had not taken advantage of her situation in the least. Well, she needed the food, and perhaps she might venture to ask this gentleman a few questions.
The young man gave an order and then turned back to her.
“He’s bringing you the tea at once,” he said pleasantly, “but I’m getting a steak for myself and they’re always too big for one. You’ll eat a little of it, I’m sure, and then you’ll be more fitted to decide what to do. Here comes the tea now.”
The hot tea brought the color to Ariel’s white cheeks. As the young man watched the life come back into her face, with satisfaction he smiled. “Now,” said he, leaning across the table with a confidential tone, “my name is Granniss, and I live in Glenside, ten miles out. I wish you’d just consider that I’m your brother for a few minutes and tell me how I can serve you. I don’t see leaving you here to sit in the station indefinitely after a fall like that. You ought to be put to bed and have someone to look after you. If you haven’t a train, you must live in the city, and if you haven’t a friend, won’t you just consider me that until you get to your home? I can easily call a cab and see you to your boarding place or take you in the trolley car if you insist on that, but you ought to be looked after, and I’m going to do it until someone else better fitted turns up. Now tell me, please, where are you staying?”
CHAPTER IV
There was something grave and reassuring about the young man’s voice that made her trust him. She wondered if she ought to tell him her situation. It was against all her upbringing and principles to confide her troubles to a stranger, especially a man, and a young one; yet she sorely needed advice, and she needn’t take it if she didn’t like it.
“You’re very kind, Mr. Granniss,” she said at length in a quaintly formal tone. “But I’m not staying anywhere. I’ve just come today. I’m Miss Custer of Virginia” There was something in the sweet dignity with which she spoke the name that demanded respect. It seemed to summon the long line of noble Custers to speak for her in this informal introduction.
The color swept into Jud’s face, and for a moment he felt almost as if he had presumed, yet it was not anything in her tone or manner that made him feel she looked down upon him. It was perhaps the little lifting of her head, patrician born, that made him feel somehow her fineness. He almost wondered at himself for speaking so freely with her. He who had always held aloof from girls.
“I came up to take a position in a library that a friend had, I thought, secured for me, but when I reached here I found the friend had been suddenly called far away to care for a sick mother and had resigned her position. The letter she wrote me telling me not to come did not reach me, and I find someone else has the position. So you see my plans are somewhat upset. I was absorbed in the perplexity of what I should do next when I was crossing that street, or I probably would not have done such a foolish thing as to be run over by a bicycle and make all this trouble.”
“Say, that’s tough luck!” said Jud, all interest again. “What are you going to do? Have you a place to stop tonight?”
“No,” said Ariel, quite composed now and self-possessed, “and perhaps you can advise me, since you’re so kind as to offer. I was to stay with my friend, but I haven’t an idea where, as I was to meet her at the station, or come to the library if we missed each other. But I’ve read about the YWCA. Is there one near here?”
Jud’s face lightened. “There is, of course,” he said briskly, “and there’s such a thing as a Traveler’s Aid agent right here in the station. If I am not mistaken, a friend of someone I know is on duty in the evening here. She would know where was the best place for you to go, and you could talk to her all about your problems. That’s what she’s here for. Just excuse me a minute and I’ll see if she’s at her desk.”
Granniss hurried through the swinging doors and Ariel sat alone, feeling suddenly forlorn in a strange world. Suspicious too, a little, now that he was out of her sight, of the stranger who seemed so determined to help her. She had been so earnestly warned before she left home that she was inclined almost to run away while he was gone, and so be free from him. Yet her innate courtesy would not let her do so in spite of her fears. He had been too kind to treat so shabbily.
Granniss was back in a short time just as the waiter arrived with a well-laden tray. “Yes, Miss Darcy’s here,” he said in a relieved tone. “I spoke to her about you, and she says there’s a nice room vacant in a girls’ club tonight, just for the night, that you can take. The new occupant comes tomorrow. Then tomorrow Miss Darcy thinks she can find something for you more permanent if you want it. She’s coming in as soon as she meets a girl on the New York train and sends her to her friends. You’ll like her, and she will advise you about anything. You know about the Traveler’s Aid, don’t you?”
Ariel shook her head.
“Why, it’s an organization to take care of travelers, especially women and young girls, who are alone and don’t know where to go or how to find their friends. There is always someone on duty day and night at all big railroad stations to help those who need them. They wear a badge like a policeman’s with ‘Traveler’s Aid’ on it, and they have a desk in the women’s waiting room. There are notices here and there, around, in several languages, telling where to find the agent and bearing a copy of her badge so strangers or foreigners will not be afraid to trust her.”
Ariel’s eyes were dreamy with thought. “That is wonderful,” she said, an almost startled look on her face.
“A pretty good system,” said Granniss. “I don’t know that it’s especially wonderful. It’s the right thing. It ought to have been done years before it was.”
“Yes, but well, you don’t understand,” said the girl, smiling. “It’s a little private wonder all to myself this time. You see, I was just a little frightened over coming away from home all alone for the first time in my life, and last night I found a verse in my grandmother’s Bible that said, ‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee,’ and somehow all along the way I’ve had that proved to me again and again. First there were some friends at the station this morning who planned for my comfort, and then there was you who picked