hey
parted at the yards, and Sanders went across the track where his fireman
waited for him on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and
found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, with whom he
was not forbidden by common-sense to play.

CHAPTER VI

By the time he reached the engine-house he was white with snow, and wet
and warm. There was no heating in the sheds where the locomotives waited
for their firemen, and the snow and wind beat in, and on the
cow-catchers of the two in line was a fringe of white like the
embroidery on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place
insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin wooden shed.

Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the midnight express
locomotive, to be hitched at West Albany to the Far West Limited. His
own, Number Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender,
graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it shining and gleaming and
lustreful. It was his pride to regard it as a living thing. Love was
essential to any work he did; he did not understand toil without it, and
he cared for his locomotive with enthusiasm.

He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine was in perfect order;
the fire had already been started by one of the shed firemen, and
Fairfax shook down the coals and prepared to get up steam. They were
scheduled to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train into
the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train till dawn. It was
his first night's work in several weeks, and the first ever in a
temperature like this. Since morning the thermometer had fallen twenty
points.

His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled--a red dress flashed before his
eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, too vivid and too violent, then it
changed to a warm crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the
vision of the child was too young to hold Antony, now desirous and
gloomy. His point of view had changed and his face set as he worked
about in the cab and his adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that
was grave and stern.

He hummed under his breath the different things as they came to him.

"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._"

Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee and his broken
English. And the magnolias were blooming in the yard, for the professor
lived on the veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there
were the nightingales.

"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._"