"I could say much more than that if I----"
But she interrupted him again.
"Why can't I stand up there?"
"On that gusset plate?"
"Is that what you call it?"
"Yes, it bears the same relation to structural steel that a gusset
does to a woman's dress. I don't suppose you know how to make a
dress?"
"Do I not? You don't know that I have done some settlement work, do
you?"
"No, but I am not surprised to find that you have done anything good
and useful and beautiful."
"Well, it's hardly that last, but as it happens I could make a dress
if----"
"If what?"
"If I were a poor man's wife and had to."
She laughed a little nervously.
"A dress like the one you are wearing?" he asked.
"Hardly that," she laughed again. "It took an artist to do that, and
I would not want one like it in that case. I am only at best a plain
sewer."
"Plain!" persisted he fatuously.
"Exactly. But can't I stand on that?"
"Wait," he answered.
He climbed to the center of it, lifted himself up and down on his
feet to test it and found it solid apparently.
"I think so," he said at last, "but I shall have to put you up."
"Am I never to be allowed to climb anything myself?" she asked as he
lifted her up and set her down on her feet in the middle of the plate
of steel as gently as before.
"Not when I am by to help you," was his reply.
"Perhaps you do not know that I am one of the few women who have done
some real mountain climbing?"
"I don't know anything at all about you except that I----"
"Oh, there comes the steamer," she cried. "I can see it beautifully
from here."
"Be careful," was his answer, "you must not move. Stand perfectly
steady. I am not so sure of that plate. Indeed, if you will permit
me----"
He reached over from where he stood on the track below her and by her
side and gathered the material of her dress into what could only be
described as a bunch, which he held in an iron grasp.
"I do not think that is necessary," she said. "This plate seems as
solid as the rest of the bridge and--oh, there's the steamer! She's
right under us."
The big river craft was filled with light and laughter. The wind
fortunately blew the smoke away from the bridge so that they had a
clear and perfect view of her. There was a band playing aboard her.
They heard the music above the beat of the whirling paddles, the song
of the rising wind. The passengers were congregated about the rails
on the upper decks staring upward. The bridge was as fascinating to
them as it was to the people ashore evidently.
"How interesting," said the delighted girl. "Why don't you come up
here yourself, you can see so much better?"
The man dropped her gown, lifted his right foot to the pile on the
stringers to follow her suggestion. Thoughtlessly she stepped toward
the outer end to give him room, quite forgetful of his caution. The
gusset plate was not so securely bedded on that uneven pile as either
of them had fancied. Before he could complete his step or warn her
of the danger, it now bent forward. It tilted distinctly. In spite
of herself, Helen Illingworth was carried still farther forward as in
her excitement she sought to regain her balance and that disturbed
the unstable equilibrium of the piece of steel still more. It began
to slip downward, grating on the pile of beams as it moved; another
second and it would be off and on its way irrevocably.
Meade threw himself at the girl. He lunged out and caught her just
as she was slipping downward with the plate now almost perpendicular.
To catch her he had to step to the very edge of the planking beyond
which the rails ran naked on the ties.
With a tremendous effort he caught her by the waist and swung her up
and in and backward. Fortunately the hypothenuse of the plate ran
away from the pier or it might have swept her down in spite of all he
could do. As it was he caught her furiously to his breast and stood
fast on the brink quivering, heaving himself desperately backward as
he sought to maintain his balance and take the backward step that
meant safety.
Neither of them had said a word. A wild shout rose from the steamer
as the huge plate dropped, like the blade of a mighty guillotine,
straight down through the air. The floor plane of the bridge was two
hundred feet above the water. The heavy piece of steel, weighing
hundreds of pounds, was traveling with the velocity of a lightning
flash when it neared the water. If it had struck the boat it would
have cut it through like a knife. Fortunately it cleared the gangway
by inches. In a second or more it had disappeared. Screams, shouts,
arose from the boat which promptly sheered off into midstream.
Helen Illingworth's back had been toward Meade as he seized her. She
had seen as he had everything that happened. Recovering himself at
last he stepped back slowly, almost dragging her, until they were a
safe distance from the edge.
"My God," he said hoarsely. "What a narrow escape."
"For the boat?"
"What do I care for the boat?"
"For me?"
"I thought you were gone."
"And so I should have been if you had not been there."
"If you had gone down I should have followed you, I swear."
His face was ghastly white in the moonlight. Sweat covered his
forehead. He was shaking like a wind-blown leaf both on account of
the strain of his sudden and terrific effort, and because of the
reaction from the horror that had overwhelmed him as he saw her
sliding.
"The whole world went black when I saw you go," he said slowly.
"Do you care that much?" asked the girl, trembling herself.
There was no necessity for maidenly reticence now.
"Care?" said the man, "care?"
"I'm all right now."
"You are more fortunate than I. I stood to lose you, you stood to
lose only life. Don't you see? Can't you understand? My God!"
Suddenly he swept her to his breast as this time she faced him. She
was very near him and she did not make the slightest resistance. It
was the fourth time he had taken her in his arms that night, but this
time there was all the difference in the world.
She had waited for this hour and she was glad. They had faced death
too nearly for any hesitation now. She knew from what he had said to
her that he loved her, and although he had not referred to it in any
way she also knew that he had so superbly and magnificently saved her
at the imminent risk of his own life. There had been swift yet
eternal moments when it seemed that both of them, trembling on the
brink, would follow the downward rush of the gusset plate. Now as he
strained her to him, she lifted her face to him, glad that she was
tall enough for him to kiss her with so slight a bend of the head.
There, under the great trusses of steel, amid the huge, gaunt,
massive evidences of the power, of the might, of the mastery of man,
two hearts spoke to each other in the silence, and told the story
that was old before the first smelter had ever turned the first ore
into the first bit of iron, before Tubal Cain ever smote the anvil;
the story of love that began with creation, that will outlast all the
iron in all the hills of the earth--that is as eternal as it is
divine!
VI
THEY CROSS THE BRIDGE TOGETHER
Ordinarily Meade's head was as clear as the air of a mountain top,
his nerves as steady as the steel of the great bridge, but that night
after the shock he had sustained he was almost afraid to attempt to
return to the shore along the planks laid between the rails. No
experience that he had ever gone through had so completely unnerved
him. It was then the woman who played the man's part. As he said,
all she had faced was loss of life; that was a simple thing in his
mind compared to the loss of her; extravagant, foolish, if you will,
but true.
He blamed himself, too, for having allowed her to climb up on that
gusset plate. To be sure he had tested it, but, as the event proved,
he had not tested it as thoroughly as he should. Indeed, the fact
that the most precious thing on earth to him, the being he loved
above all else together, had been nearly killed through his lack of
care, his failure absolutely to make sure, smote him terribly. He
strove, at first vainly, to control himself, but presently by the
exercise of as iron a constraint as was ever imposed on nerves by the
will of man, he succeeded in attaining some degree of composure.
After that wild embrace, that first rapturous meeting of lips, he had
released her slightly, though he still held her closely and she had
been quite content to be so arm-encircled and await his further
pleasure.
"I'm quite calm, now," he began, "that is, I have mastered that awful
horror and the nervous shock that came upon me when I saw you sliding
away, and I am as composed as any man could be who is holding you in
his arms."
"It's all over now, there is nothing to reproach yourself with. I am
safe, thanks to you. I should not have ventured, anyway."
"Yes, but if it had not been for me you would never have been in
danger. It was my fault. I should have made sure. I shall never
forgive myself."
"But I forgive you gladly because I shall never forget that if I had
not been in danger I might not now be here in your arms."
"Oh," exclaimed the man, "how sweetly you put it--nevertheless----"
"And if I were not here," she went on swiftly, too happy in her love
to be mindful of anything else, "I certainly would not be
doing--this."
And of her own motion she kissed him in the moonlight.
"And if you were not doing this," said he, making the proper return,
"I might not have had the courage to tell you."
"You haven't told me anything--in words," she answered, fain to hear
from his lips what she well knew from the beating of his heart.
"It's not too late then to tell you that I love you, that I am yours.
To give myself to you seems to be the highest possibility in life, if
you will only take me."
"And do you love me more than the bridge?"
"More than all the bridges in the world, past, present and to come;
more than anything or anybody. I tell you I never knew what love was
or what life was until I saw you sliding to your death."
Sometimes only death opens the eyes to the meaning of life.
"I'm glad I fell just as far as I did."
"One foot more and you would have been in the river."
"As it was I stopped just at the level of your heart."
"Yes, thank God."
"And your own quickness and noble strength."
"I thought I was too late when we trembled on yonder verge."
"Do you know you actually hurt me when you swept me so roughly to
you, not but that there are some pains that surpass all joys."
"There was no time for gentle measures."
"I know, and I knew I was safe when you caught me. Somehow I
expected you would do it. I knew that you would not let me fall."
"If I had not succeeded I should have followed you."
"I felt that, too," she answered dreamily.
"We must go back, dearest," he said at last, "I am so fearful for you
even now that I am almost unwilling to try it. Every time I glance
down through these interspaces between the stringers my blood runs
cold."
"You supported me before; I will support you now," laughed the woman.
"No," said the man, "we will go together."
They turned toward the shore. He took her hand and slipped his other
arm about her just as simply and naturally as if they had been any
humble lover and his lass in the countryside.
"No place on earth will ever be what this bridge is to me," said the
woman. "I knew you loved me, of course, at least I hoped so; at any
rate I knew that I loved you----"
"I never dared dream that you could."
"But here the words were first spoken, here you first took me to your
heart, here you kissed me first." She stopped and he with her, she
flung her free hand up in the air. The moonlight fell softly upon
her sweetly rounded arm. "Oh, beautiful bridge, oh, exquisite
creation of stone and steel, you have gives my lover to me. The wind
will never blow through you, the moon will never shine upon you
without recalling that," she cried rapturously. She waited a moment
while his heart whispered amen. "Let us go," she said reluctantly
enough, loath to leave the place where death had stretched out his
hand and love held him back.
"One more kiss," he pleaded, "and then----"
By and by they got to the end of the bridge.
"I shall carry you across the dust once again," he said as they
passed out of sight of the watchman, who had seen the falling plate
and heard it splash into the river; but being a discreet man and
realizing that the engineer and the woman were safe he had made no
outcry. Meade thereafter properly rewarded him for his discretion.
This time he held her differently. This time she slipped her arm
about his neck and laid her head upon his breast and he carried her
as he might have carried a child. When he set her down on the
station platform, now quite deserted, they both discovered first that
she had lost the light wrap that had shrouded her bare shoulders and
next that in the violence with which he had seized her as she fell,
the skirt of her dress, which had caught on a piece of steel, had
been rent and torn. It did not affect her appearance, in fact in
that moonlight, she looked positively heavenly to him at least.
Far down the platform they could see the lights of the car.
"Listen," she said as they walked slowly along. "You must not tell
father anything about this little accident."
"I obey, but why not?"
"It would only worry him, and it was my fault."
"No, mine."
"I will not hear you say it."
"But I must speak to your father about----"
"And the sooner the better; he is in good humor with you and the
bridge now. I have heard him speak well of you. He is intensely
American and he has never been anxious to have me marry any foreign
title, or even the fortune hunters of our own country who have wooed
me. I believe he will be glad to give me to you."
"And if not?"
"I should hate to grieve my father, but----"
She turned and looked at him in the moonlight, her glorious golden
head, her neck, her shoulders, her arms bare and beautiful in the
celestial illumination which gave to the warm flesh a touch of
coldness, and mingled purity with the passion she inspired and
exhibited which made it almost holy in both their hearts.
He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips as a devotee, and she
understood the reason for the little touch of old-world formality and
reserve, when nought but his will prevented him from taking her to
his heart and making her lips, her eyes, her face, his own.
"Now may God deal with me as I deal with you," he said fervently, "if
I ever fail at least to try with all my heart and soul and strength
to measure up to your sweetness and light."
"My prayer for myself, too," she whispered. "You need it not."
"You must wait here," she said, deeply touched, as they had now
reached the steps of the car, "until I have changed my dress; father
would notice, anybody would, that tear. When I have finished I will
come back to you and then we will seek him and tell him."
Accordingly Meade stood obediently waiting outside the car in the
shadow it cast. There was no one about. The servants had gone to
bed. The porter of the car was nodding in his quarters waiting for
the time to turn out the lights. The engineer had the long platform
all to himself. After a time he chose to walk quietly up and down,
thinking. The future looked very fair to him. To be sure he had
nearly lost the woman he loved in the river, and it had been his
fault. He overlooked the fact that she had disregarded his caution
and stepped forward. But after all she had not fallen. He had
caught her on the very brink. He could remember, he never would
forget, those seconds, like hours, when he stood trembling, even
swaying, upon the very edge of the bridge, with practically nothing
but his precarious foothold between the two of them and the awful
plunge into the river two hundred feet below. He could not think how
he managed to retain his balance and draw her back with him, away
from that perilous standing place; but he had done so and the result
had been the confession which he had dared to make and to which she
had vouchsafed that blessed return.
If only her father could see in him any fitness to be trusted with so
priceless a treasure all would be well. Meade had never made a
failure in his life, except in small ways which had only been of
sufficient importance to teach him to cope with greater difficulties.
His career had been practically one unbroken success. He had
acquired a remarkably fine reputation for so young a man in his
profession and he had gained it, not only because of his father's
great eminence, but in spite of it; for the paternal renown had been
something of a handicap in that he had at least been compelled to
live up to it.
There are few tasks so hard as living up to a reputation, unless it
is living one down. He was about to fall heir to such of his
father's business and prestige as the one could transfer and the
other take up. The great bridge was rising grandly and even he would
share in the fame that it would bring to its designer. His
forebodings had been unwarranted, his father's reasoning abundantly
justified. He was glad. The woman he loved returned his affection.
When she might have had anyone in the world she took--him! If only
her father----
VII
THE COLONEL MAKES CONDITIONS
"Bert," a sweet voice came to him out of the darkness, and the first
familiar sound of his name from her lips confirmed all that had
passed which, as he had waited, he almost had felt he had dreamed.
He turned to discover her standing in the door of the car dressed as
she should have been for such an excursion had she at first followed
her father's wise suggestion. His heart thrilled to the use of the
familiar name. With a sort of boyish shyness he made answer in kind.
"Helen," he said, "shall I come up there?"
"I'm coming down to you."
Now whether she was afflicted with sudden weakness or he with sudden
fear, it was quite apparent, had anyone been by to see, that no
longer could she descend from car step to platform without much
careful assistance; also she had to pay toll before he let her pass.
There was no unwillingness in either case. Hand-in-hand they walked
to the rear of the car, where the observation platform was still
brightly lighted.
Abbott had gone and the other three men were on their feet. They
were about to separate for the night, although it was still rather
early.
"Father," said his daughter out of the darkness.
"Oh, you're there," answered the Colonel. "I wondered when you were
coming back. I was just thinking of going to fetch you. Is Mr.
Meade----?"
"I'm here, sir."
"Good-night, gentlemen," said the Colonel as the others turned away,
leaving him alone on the platform.
He came to the edge and leaned over the brass railing.
"Are you two going to make a night of it?" he asked jocosely.
"Colonel Illingworth," began Meade.
"Father," said his daughter at the same time, "we have something to
say to you."
"Umph," said the Colonel, staring down at them narrowly as they
stepped into the full light from the dome of the platform.
"Something to say to me, eh?"
"Yes."
The old man's face fell a little as every father's face falls when
his daughter and the man obviously in love with her make that
statement.
"Well, say it and be done with it," he continued, clamping his teeth
on his cigar a trifle nervously.
"We can't say it with you there and we here. Come down, and----"
Colonel Illingworth opened the gate, lifted the platform, and
descended the steps.
"Here I am," he said as he stopped by the two.
His daughter took him by the arm and they walked down the platform so
as to be out of any possible hearing from the car.
"Now," she said to Meade, who followed her.
His heart was beating almost as rapidly as it had on the bridge and
for exactly the same reason--fear of losing her. He tried to speak.
"Well, young man?" said Illingworth, flicking the ashes from his
cigar and wishing to get it over, "you said you had something to say
to me."
"Yes, sir, I have."
"Why don't you say it, then?"
"It's a very hard thing to say, sir." He looked helplessly at the
girl, but she was speechless. It was his task. If she were not
worth asking for she was not worth having, she might have said.
"Well, sir," he began desperately, "I love your daughter, Helen. I
want to marry her."
"Umph," said the Colonel again, "I supposed as much. How long have
you and Helen known each other?"
"Over a year, sir, but I loved her from the very moment I saw her. I
did not dare hope, I didn't dream, I never imagined, and strange as
it may seem, sir, she--seems to love me."
"Seems?" exclaimed the girl softly.
"Wait, Helen," said her father, "this is a matter for me and Mr.
Meade."
"And am I to have nothing to say?"
"It strikes me that you have probably had your say already."
"Yes, on the bridge," burst forth the engineer.
"Ah, on the bridge! I see. Are you sure she loves you enough to be
your wife?"
"I--you see--er--a----"
"Of course I do," said Helen, realizing that it was now high time for
her to come to the rescue of her lover, "and so would any other
woman."
"You know, of course, that while I am not rich, I am not poor and I
can support my wife in every comfort, sir," urged the man, greatly
relieved by the woman's prompt avowal.
"She'll need a few luxuries besides, I'm thinking."
"Yes, of course, sir, I'll see that she gets them. This bridge is
going to make us all famous and I shall have my father's influence
and----"
"When the bridge is finished," said the Colonel decisively, "come to
me and you shall have my daughter."
"Oh, father, the bridge won't be finished for----" began the girl.
"I accept your terms gladly," said the man, realizing that in any
event they would have to wait for the bridge. "It's in the contract
that we are to deliver it complete before the first of November."
"And that's not far off," Colonel Illingworth reminded his daughter.
"If it is left to me, sir, and I can stir up Abbott, we will be ahead
of the contract date," said Meade.
"You understand, of course, that there is to be no public
announcement of the engagement until the bridge is finished," the
older man said emphatically.
"I understand, sir," answered the engineer, too happy at her father's
consent to make any difficulties over any reasonable conditions he
might impose. "Yes, Helen, it's all right, your father is right.
This job's got to be done before I----"
"Don't say before you tackle another," protested the girl, half
disappointed, and yet seeing the reasonableness of both men, while
the Colonel laughed grimly.
"That's about the size of it," said the old man, "no matter how you
put it. One thing at a time. Meade has this bridge on his soul, and
he ought to have it, and although he may have you on his heart he
must forget that until the bridge is completed and then--well, Meade,
you'll be coming into our employ and I don't know anybody on earth I
would rather have for my son-in-law than a clean, honest, able
American with a record like yours. A man who can look me in the eye
and grasp me by the hand, like this."
He put out his hand as he spoke. Meade's own palm met it and the two
men shook hands unemotionally but firmly after the manner of the
self-restrained practical American, who is always fearful of a scene
and does not wear his heart upon his sleeve. The Colonel threw away
his cigar, slipped his arm around his daughter's waist, kissed her
softly on the forehead.
"I hate to lose you, Helen. I hate to give you up to anyone. We
have been very happy together since your mother died, leaving you a
little girl to me; but it had to come, I suppose, and perhaps I shall
be glad in the end. Good-night, Meade. You will be coming in
presently, Helen?"
He turned and walked away as they answered him. They watched him go
slowly with bended head. They watched him climb, rather heavily, up
the steps of the car--that he was an old man seemed rather suddenly
borne in upon them. He stood for a moment in the light smiling,
remembering, and then turned and marched within the car. He switched
the light out as he passed down the corridor.
"Wasn't he splendid?" said Helen, when she had time to breathe and
freedom to speak.
"One of the finest old men on earth," continued Meade. "He and
father would make a great team and----"
"You and I another," she said quickly.
"If I could only live up to you there wouldn't be a pair since Adam
and Eve like us."
"But it's so long to wait for the bridge. I hate to have my fate
bound up in iron and steel."