The woman wins Author:Robert Barr Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE AS the great steamship slowly approached her berth, Philip Radnor eagerly scanned the sea of faces upturned towards him. The end o... more »f the wharf was covered with a dense mass of humanity, gathered to welcome friends or relatives arriving by the incoming liner. The drab-coloured crowd was lightened here and there by the white blotch of a fluttering handkerchief, and these blossoms of greeting increased as the thronged vessel neared the pier-head. The wharf reminded Philip of a pan of popcorn held over a brisk fire, each individual grain bursting, one after another, into a fluffy flower of white. Cry of recognition from ship or shore was answered from shore or ship. There was a pang of disappointment in Philip's heart when, at last, he was forced to admit that the face he sought was not among those on the wharf. He had written to his wife from London telling her not to meet him; the journey would fatigue her; the ship might be delayed; the day of arrival was likely to be stormy at that season of the year; there had been many good reasons why she should not come, yet now her absence caused a feeling of loneliness which almost overpowered him, accentuated by the fact that every other passenger seemed to have one or more friends awaiting him. Philip rested his arms on the rail of the steamship and regarded the multitude with that air of impersonal unconcern which a man assumes toward a mob with no separate item ofwhich he is acquainted. His mind was attuned to the sentiment of the old song. . . . What was this dull town to him, when the one he sought was not there ? Indeed, the enthusiastic gathering below him faded from his vision, and he saw instead a boudoir sixty miles distant; a room he had contrived especially for his wife, so that she might communi...« less