"Neither better nor worse than you did. We had a buffet luncheon--baked
beans and that exquisite tomato-catchup, you know--served in our
section, and we saw one act of a charming little comedy playing itself
on the platform at the supper station. Be nice and tell me all about it.
Did the cold-blooded gentleman with the overseeing eyes succeed in
overtaking you?"
Brockway saw it was no use, and laughed good-naturedly. "You are a born
detective, Mrs. Burton; I wouldn't be in Burton's shoes for a farm in
the Golden Belt," he retorted. "How much did you really see, and how
much did you take for granted?"
"I saw a young man, who didn't take the trouble to keep his emotions out
of his face, marching up and down the platform with Miss Vennor on his
arm. Then I saw an elderly gentleman pacing back and forth between two
feminine chatterboxes, and trying to outgeneral the two happy people.
Naturally, I want to know more. Did you really go without your supper to
take a constitutional with Miss Gertrude? And did the unhappy father
contrive to spoil your _tete-a-tete_?"
There was triumph in Brockway's grin.
"No, he didn't--not that time; I out-witted him. And I didn't go without
my supper, either. I had the honor of dining with the President's party
in the Naught-fifty."
"You did! Then I'm sure she must have invited you; _he'd_ never do it.
How did it happen?"
Brockway told the story of the disabled cooking-stove, and Mrs. Burton
laughed till the tears came. "How perfectly ridiculous!" she exclaimed,
between gasps. "And she took your part and invited you to dinner, did
she? Then what happened?"
"I was properly humiliated and sat upon," said Brockway, in wrathful
recollection. "They talked about everything under the sun that I'd never
heard of, and I had to sit through it all like a confounded oyster!"
"Oh, nonsense!" said Mrs. Burton, sweetly; "you know a good many things
that they never dreamed of. But how did you manage to get Gertrude away
from them all?"
"I didn't; she managed it for me. When we got up from the table the
train was just slowing into Carvalho. I was going to run away, as
befitted me, but she proposed a breath of fresh air on the platform."
"Then you had a chance to show her that you weren't born dumb, and I
hope you improved it. But how did you dodge Mr. Vennor?"
"We missed a turn and went forward to look at the engine. Then Ger--Miss
Vennor thought she would like to take a ride in the cab, and----"
"And, of course, you arranged it. You knew that was just the thing of
all others that would reinstate you. It was perfectly Machiavellian!"
Brockway opened his eyes very wide. "Knew what?" he said, bluntly. "I
only knew it was the thing she wanted to do, and that was enough. Well,
we skipped back and notified Mrs. Dunham--she's the chaperon, you
know--and then we chased ahead again and got on the engine."
"Where I'll promise you she enjoyed more new sensations in a minute than
you had all through their chilly dinner," put in Mrs. Burton, who had
ridden on many locomotives.
"She did, indeed," Brockway rejoined, exultantly, living over again the
pleasure of the brief hour in the retelling. "At Arriba, the engineer
turned the 926 over to me, and I put Miss Vennor up on the box and let
her run between Arriba and Red Butte."
"Well--of all things! Do you know, Fred, I've had a silly idea all
afternoon that I'd like to help you, but dear me! you don't need my
help. Of course, after that, it was all plain sailing for you."
Brockway shook his head. "You're taking entirely too much for granted,"
he protested. "It was only a pleasant bit of 'distraction,' as she
called it, for her, and there was no word--that is I--oh, confound it
all! I couldn't presume on a bit of good comradeship like that!"
"You--couldn't--presume! Why, you silly, _silly_ boy, it was the chance
of a lifetime! So daringly original--so utterly unhackneyed! And you
couldn't presume--I haven't a bit of patience with you."
"I'm sorry for that; I need a little sympathy."
"You don't deserve it; but perhaps you'd get it if you could show
cause."
"Can't you see? Don't you understand that nothing can ever come of it?"
Brockway demanded, relapsing fathoms deep into the abyss of
hopelessness.
"Nothing ever will come of it if you go on squandering your chances as
you have to-day. What is the matter with you? Are you afraid of the
elderly gentleman with the calculating eye?"
"Not exactly afraid of him; but he's a millionnaire, and Miss Vennor has
a fortune in her own right. And I----"
"Don't finish it. I understand your objection; you are poor and
proud--and that's as it should be; but tell me--you are in love with
Miss Vennor, aren't you? When did it begin?"
"A year ago."
"You didn't permit yourself to fall in love with her until you knew all
about her circumstances and prospects, of course?"
"You know better than that. It was--it was what you'd call love at first
sight," he confessed, rather shame-facedly; and then he told her how it
began.
"Very good," said Mrs. Burton, approvingly. "Then you did actually
manage to fall in love with Gertrude herself, and not with her money.
But now, because you've found out she has money, you are going to spoil
your chance of happiness, and possibly hers. Is that it?"
Brockway tried to explain. "It's awfully good of you to try to put it in
that light, but no one would ever believe that I wasn't mercenary--that
I wasn't a shameless cad of a fortune-hunter. I couldn't stand that, you
know."
"No, of course not; not even for her sake. Besides, she doubtless looks
upon you as a fortune-hunter, and----"
"What? Indeed she doesn't anything of the kind."
"Well, then, if you are sure she doesn't misjudge you, what do you care
for the opinion of the world at large?"
"Much; when you show me a man who doesn't care for public opinion, I'll
show you one who ought to be in jail."
"Fudge! Please don't try to hide behind platitudes. But about Gertrude,
and your little affair, which is no affair; what are you going to do
about it?"
"Nothing; there is nothing at all to be done," Brockway replied with
gloomy emphasis.
"I suppose nothing would ever induce you to forgive her for being rich?"
"I can never quite forgive myself for being poor, since it's going to
cost me so much."
"You are too equivocal for any use. Answer my question," snapped the
small inquisitor.
"How can I?" Brockway inquired, with masculine density. "Forgiveness
implies an injury, and----"
"Oh, _oh_--how stupid you can be when you try! You know perfectly well
what I mean."
"I'm not sure that I do," said Brockway, whose wit was easily confounded
by a sharp tongue.
"Then I'll put it in words of one syllable. Do you mean to ask Miss
Vennor to be your wife?"
"I couldn't, and keep my self-respect."
"Not if you knew she wanted you to?" persisted the small tormentor.
"Oh, I say--that couldn't be, you know," he protested. "I'm nothing more
than a pleasant acquaintance to her, at the very most."
"But if you knew she did?"
"How could I know it?"
"We are not discussing ways and means; answer the question."
Thereat the man, tempted beyond what he could bear, abdicated in favor
of the lover. "If I could be certain of that, Mrs. Burton--if I could be
sure she loves me, nothing on earth should stand in the way of our
happiness. Is that what you wanted me to say?"
The little lady clapped her hands enthusiastically. "I thought I could
find the joint in your armor, after awhile. Now you may go; I want to be
by myself and think. Good-night."
Brockway took the summary dismissal good-naturedly, and, as the train
was just then slowing into a station, he ran out to drop off and catch
the upcoming hand-rail of the Tadmor.
XI
AN ARRIVAL IN TRANSIT
When Gertrude bade Brockway good-night, she changed places for the
moment with a naughty child on its way to face the consequences of a
misbehavior, entering the private car with a childish consciousness of
wrong-doing fighting for place with a rather militant determination to
meet reproof with womanly indifference. Much to her relief, she found
her father alone, and there was no distinguishable note of displeasure
in his greeting.
"Well, Gertrude, did you enjoy your little diversion? Sit down and tell
me about it. How does the cab compare with the sitting-room of a private
car?"
The greeting was misleading, but she saw fit to regard it as merely the
handshaking which precedes a battle royal.
"I enjoyed it much," she answered, quietly. "It was very exciting; and
very interesting, too."
"Ah; I presume so. And your escort took good care of you--made you quite
comfortable, I suppose."
"Yes."
Mr. Vennor leaned back in his chair and regarded her gravely through the
swirls of blue smoke curling upward from his cigar. "Didn't it strike
you as being rather--ah--a girlish thing for you to do? in the night,
you know, and with a comparative stranger?"
Gertrude thought the battle was about to open, and began to throw up
hasty fortifications. "Mr. Brockway is not a stranger; you may remember
that we became quite well acquainted----"
"Pardon me," the President interrupted; "that is precisely the point at
which I wished to arrive--your present estimate of this young man. I
have nothing to say about your little diversion on the engine. You are
old enough to settle these small questions of the proprieties for
yourself. But touching this young mechanic, it might be as well for us
to understand each other. Have you fully considered the probable
consequences of your most singular infatuation?"
It was a ruthless question, and the hot blood of resentment set its
signals flying in Gertrude's cheeks. Up to that evening, she had thought
of the passenger agent only as an agreeable young man of a somewhat
unfamiliar type, of whom she would like to know more; but Brockway's
moment of abandonment in the cab of the 926 had planted a seed which
threatened to germinate quickly in the warmth of the present discussion.
"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," she said, picking and
choosing among the phrases for the least incendiary. "Would you mind
telling me in so many words, just what you mean?"
"Not in the least. A year ago you met this young man in a most casual
way, and--to put it rather brutally--fell in love with him. I haven't
the slightest idea that he cares anything for you in your proper person,
or that he would have thrust himself upon us to-day if he had known that
your private fortune hangs upon the event of your marriage under certain
conditions which you evidently purpose to ignore. If, after the
object-lesson you had at the dinner-table this evening, you still prefer
this young fortune-hunter to your cousin Chester, I presume we shall all
have to submit; but you ought at least to tell us what we are to
expect."
If he had spared the epithets, she could have laughed at the baseless
fabric of supposition, but the contemptuous sentence passed upon
Brockway put her quickly upon his defence, and, incidentally, did more
to further that young man's cause than any other happening of that
eventful day.
"I suppose you have a right to say and think what you please about me,"
she said, trying vainly to be dispassionate; "but you might spare Mr.
Brockway. He didn't invite himself to dinner; and it was I who proposed
the walk on the platform and the ride on the engine."
"Humph! you are nothing if not loyal. Nevertheless, I wish you might
look the facts squarely in the face."
Gertrude knew there were no facts, of the kind he meant, but his
persistence brought forth fruit after its kind, and she stubbornly
resolved to neither affirm nor deny. Wherefore she said, a little
stiffly:
"I'm quite willing to listen to anything you wish to say."
"Then I should like to ask if you have counted the cost. Assuming that
this young man's intentions are unmercenary--and I doubt that very
much--it isn't possible that there can be anything in common between
you. The social world in which you move, and that to which he belongs,
are as widely separated as the poles. I do not say yours is the higher
plane, or his the lower--though I may have my own opinion as to
that--but I do say they are vastly different; and the woman who
knowingly marries out of her class has much to answer for. Admitting
that you will do no worse than this, how can you hope to find anything
congenial in a man who has absolutely nothing to say for himself at an
ordinary family dinner-table?"
"I'm not at all sure that Mr. Brockway hadn't anything to say for
himself, though he couldn't be expected to know or care much about the
things we talked of. And it occurred to me at the time that it wasn't
quite kind in us to talk intellectual shop from the soup to the dessert,
as we did."
The President smiled, but the cold eyes belied the outward manifestation
of kindliness. "You may thank me for that, if you choose," he went on,
in the same calm argumentative tone. "I wanted to point a moral, and if
I didn't succeed, it wasn't the fault of the subject. But that is only
the social side; a question of taste. Unfortunately, there is a more
serious matter to be considered. You know the terms of your granduncle's
will; that your Cousin Fleetwell's half of the estate became his
unconditionally on his coming of age, and that your portion is only a
trust until your marriage with your cousin?"
"I ought to know; it's been talked of enough."
"And you know that if the marriage fail by your act, you will lose this
legacy?"
"Yes."
"And that it will go to certain charitable institutions, and so be lost,
not only to you, but to the family?"
"I know all about it."
"You know it, and yet you would deliberately throw yourself away on a
fortune-hunting mechanic--a man whom you have known only since
yesterday? It's incredible!"
"It is you who have said it--not I," she retorted; "but I'm not willing
to admit that it would be all loss and no gain. There would at least be
a brand-new set of sensations, and I'm very sure they wouldn't all be
painful."
It was rebellion, pure and simple, and for once in his life Francis
Vennor gave place to wrath--plebeian wrath, vociferous and undignified.
"Shame on you!" he cried; "you are a disgrace to the name--it's the
blood of that cursed socialist on your mother's side. Sit still and
listen to me--" Gertrude, knowing her own temper, was about to run
away--"If you marry that infernal upstart, you'll do it at your own
expense, do you hear? You sha'n't finger a penny of my money as long as
I can keep you out of it. Do you understand?"
"I should be very dull if I didn't understand," she replied, preparing
to make good her retreat. "If you are quite through, perhaps you will
let me say that you are tilting at a windmill of your own building. So
far as I know, Mr. Brockway hasn't the slightest intention of asking me
to marry him; and until you took the trouble to demonstrate the
possibility, I don't think it ever occurred to me. But after what you've
said, I don't think I can ever consent to be married to Cousin
Chester--it would be too mercenary, you know;" and with this parting
shot she vanished.
In the privacy of her own stateroom she sat at the window to think it
all out. It was all very undutiful, doubtless, and she was sorry for her
part in the quarrel almost before the words were cold. She could
scarcely forgive herself for having allowed her father to carry his
assumption to such lengths, but the temptation had proved irresistible.
It was such a delicious little farce, and if it might only have stopped
short of the angry conclusion--but it had not, and therein lay the sting
of it. Whereupon, feeling the sting afresh, she set her face flintwise
against the prearranged marriage.
"I sha'n't do it," she said aloud, pressing her hot cheek against the
cool glass of the window. "I don't love Chester, and I never shall--not
in the way I should. And if I marry him, I shall be just what papa
called Mr. Brockway--only he isn't that, or anything of the kind. Poor
Mr. Brockway! If he knew what we have been talking about----"
From that point reflection went adrift in pleasanter channels. How
good-natured and forgiving Mr. Brockway had been! He must have known
that he was purposely ignored at the dinner-table, where he was an
invited guest, and yet he had not resented it; and what better proof of
gentle breeding than this could he have given? Then, in that crucial
moment of danger, how surely his presence of mind and trained energies
had forestalled the catastrophe. That was grand--heroic. It was well
worth its cost in terror to look on and see him strive with and conquer
the great straining monster of iron and steel. After that, one couldn't
well listen calmly to such things as her father had said of him.
And, admitting the truth of what had been said about his intellectual
shortcomings, was a certain glib familiarity with the modern catch-words
of book-talk and art criticism a fair test of intellectuality? Gertrude,
with her cheek still touching the cool window-pane, thought not. One
might read the reviews and talk superficially of more books than the
most painstaking student could ever know, even by sight. In like manner,
one might walk through the picture galleries and come away freighted
with great names wherewith to awe the untravelled lover of art. It was
quite evident that Mr. Brockway had done neither of these things, and
yet he was thoughtful and keenly observant; and if he were ignorant of
art, he knew and understood nature, which is the mother of all art.
From reinstating the passenger agent in his rights and privileges as a
man, she came presently upon the little incident in the cab of the 926.
How much or how little did he mean when he said he was happy to his
finger-tips? On the lips of the men of her world, such sayings went for
naught; they were but the tennis-balls of persiflage, served deftly, and
with the intent that they should rebound harmless. But she felt sure
that such a definition went wide of Mr. Brockway's meaning; of
compliments as such, he seemed to know less than nothing. And then he
had said that whatever came between them--no, that was not it--whatever
happened to either of them.... Ah, well, many things might happen--would
doubtless happen; but she would not forget, either.
The familiar sighing of the air-brake began again, and the low thunder
of the patient wheels became the diapason beneath the shrill song of the
brake-shoes. Then the red eye of a switch-lamp glanced in at Gertrude's
window, and the train swung slowly up to the platform at another prairie
hamlet. Just before it stopped, she caught a swift glimpse of a man
standing with outstretched arms, as if in mute appeal. It was Brockway.
He was merely standing in readiness to grasp the hand-rail of the Tadmor
when it should reach him; but Gertrude knew it not, and if she had, it
would have made no difference. It was the one fortuitous touch needed to
open that inner chamber of her heart, closed, hitherto, even to her own
consciousness. And when the door was opened she looked within and saw
what no woman sees but once in her life, and having once seen, will die
unwed in very truth if any man but one call her wife.
Once more the drumming wheels began the overture; the lighted bay-window
of the station slipped backward into the night, and the bloodshot eye of
another switch-lamp peered in at the window and was gone; but Gertrude
neither saw nor heard. The things of time and place were around and
about her, but not within. A new song was in her heart, its words
inarticulate as yet, but its harmonies singing with the music of the
spheres. A little later, when the "Flying Kestrel" was again in
mid-flitting, and the separate noises of the train had sunk into the
soothing under-roar, she crept into her berth wet-eyed and thankful, and
presently went to sleep too happy to harbor anxious thought for the
morrow of uncertainties.
XII
THE ANCIENTS AND INVALIDS
Brockway was up betimes the following morning, though not of his own
free will. Two hours before the "Flying Kestrel" was due in Denver, the
porter of the Tadmor awakened him at the command of the irascible
gentleman with the hock-bottle shoulders and diaphanous nose. While the
passenger agent was sluicing his face in the wash-room some one prodded
him from behind, and a thin, high-pitched voice wedged itself into the
thunderous silence.
"Mr. ah--Brockway; I understand that you are purposing to take the party
to ah--Feather Plume or ah--Silver Feather, or some such place to-day,
and I ah--protest! I have no desire to leave Denver until my ticket is
made to conform to my stipulations, sir."
Brockway had soap in his eyes, and the porter had carefully hidden the
towels; for which cause his reply was brief and to the point.
"Please wait till I get washed and dressed before you begin on me, won't
you?"
"Wait? Do you say ah--wait? I have been doing nothing but wait, sir,
ever since my ah--stipulations were ignored. It's an outrage, sir,
I----"
Brockway had found a towel and was using it vigorously as a
counter-irritant.
"For Heaven's sake, go away and let me alone until I can get my clothes
on!" he exclaimed. "I promised you yesterday you should have the thirty
days that you don't need."
The aggrieved one had his ticket out, but he put it away again in
tremulous indignation. "Go away? Did I ah--understand you to tell me to
go away, sir? I ah-h-h----" but words failed him, and he shuffled out of
the wash-room, cannoning against the little gentleman in the grass-cloth
duster and velvet skull-cap in the angle of the vestibule.
"Good-morning, Mr. Brockway," said the comforter, cheerily. "Been having
a tilt with Mr. Ticket-limits to begin the day with?"
"Oh, as a matter of course," Brockway replied, flinging the damp towel
into a corner, and brushing his hair as one who transmutes wrath into
vigorous action.
"Find him a bit trying, don't you? What particular form does his mania
take this morning?"
"It's the same old thing. I promised him, yesterday, I'd get the
extension on his ticket, and now he says he won't leave Denver till it's
done. He 'ah-protests' that I sha'n't go to Silver Plume with the party;
wants me to stay in Denver and put in the day telegraphing."
"Of course, you'll do it; you do anything anybody asks you to."
"Oh, I suppose I'll have to--to keep the peace. And if I don't go and
'personally conduct' the others, there'll be the biggest kind of a row.
Isn't it enough to wear the patience of a good-natured angel to
frazzles?"
"It is, just that. Have a cigar?"
"No, thank you. I don't smoke before breakfast."
"Neither do I, normally; but like most other people, I leave all my good
habits at home when I travel. But about Jordan and the thirty-odd; how
are you going to dodge the row?"
"The best way I can. There is a good friend of mine on the train--Mr.
John Burton, the general agent of the C. & U., in Salt Lake--and perhaps
I can get him to go up the canyon for me."
"Think he will do it?"
"I guess so; to oblige me. He'd lose only a day; and he'd make
thirty-odd friends for the C. & U., don't you see."
"I must confess that I don't see, from a purely business point of view,"
was the rejoinder. "We are all ticketed out and back, and we can't
change our route if we want to."
Brockway laughed. "The business of passenger soliciting is far-reaching.
Some of you--perhaps most of you--will go again next year; and if the
general agent of the C. & U. is particularly kind and obliging, you may
remember his line."
"Dear me--why, of course! You say your friend is on the train?"
"Yes."
"Very well; you go and see him, and I'll help you out by breaking the
news to the thirty-odd."
Brockway struggled into his coat and shook hands with the friendly one.
"Mr. Somers, you're my good angel. You've undertaken a thankless task,
though."
The womanish face under the band of the skull-cap broke into a smile
which was not altogether angelic. "I shall get my pay as I go along; our
friend with the bad case of ticket dementia will be carrying the entire
responsibility for your absence before I get through."
"Good! pile it on thick," said Brockway, chuckling. "Make 'em understand
that I'd give all my old shoes to go--that I'm so angry with Jordan for
spoiling my day's pleasure that I can't see straight."
"I'll do it," the little man agreed. "Take a cigar to smoke after
breakfast"--and the gray duster and velvet skull-cap disappeared
forthwith around the angle in the vestibule.