Carteret was reading under the Pintsch drop-light at the table.
It was the chaperon who applied the firing spark to the electrical possibilities.
"Didn"t I hear you talking to some one out on the platform, Virginia?"
she asked.
"Yes, it was Mr. Winton. He came to make his excuses."
Mr. Somerville Darrah awoke out of his tobacco reverie with a start.
"Hah!" he said fiercely. Then, in his most courteous phrase: "Did I undehstand you to say that Misteh Winton would not faveh us to-night, my deah Virginia?"
"He could not. He has come upon--upon some other difficulty, I believe," she stammered, steering a perilous course among the rocks of equivocation.
"Mmph!" said the Rajah, rising. "Ah--where is Jastrow?"
The obsequious one appeared, imp-like, at the mention of his name, and received a curt order.
"Go and find Engineer McGrath and his fireman. Tell him I want the engine instantly. Move, seh!"
Virginia retreated to her state-room. In a few minutes she heard her uncle go out; and shortly afterward the Rosemary"s engine shook itself free of the car and rumbled away westward. At that, Virginia went back to the others and found a book. But if waiting inactive were difficult, reading was blankly impossible.
"Goodness!" she exclaimed impatiently at last. "How hot you people keep it in here! Cousin Billy, won"t you take a turn with me on the station platform? I can"t breathe!"
Calvert acquiesced eagerly, scenting an opportunity. But when they were out under the frosty stars he had the good sense to walk her up and down in the healing silence and darkness for five full minutes before he ventured to say what was in his mind.
When he spoke it was earnestly and to the purpose, not without eloquence. He loved her; had always loved her, he thought. Could she not, with time and the will to try, learn to love him?--not as a cousin?
She turned quickly and put both hands on his shoulders.
"Oh, Cousin Billy--_don"t_!" she faltered brokenly; and he, seeing at once that he had played the housebreaker where he would fain have been the welcome guest, took his punishment manfully, drawing her arm in his and walking her yet other turns up and down the long platform until his patience and the silence had wrought their perfect work.
"Does it hurt much?" she asked softly, after a long time.
"You would have to change places with me to know just how much it hurts," he answered. "And yet you haven"t left me quite desolate, Virginia. I still have something left--all I"ve ever had, I fancy."
"And that is--"
"My love for you, you know. It isn"t at all contingent upon your yes or no; or upon possession--it never has been, I think. It has never asked much except the right to be."
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Cousin Billy, I do believe that you are the best man that ever lived. And I am ashamed--ashamed!"
"What for?"
"If I have spoiled you, ever so little, for some truer, worthier woman."
"You haven"t," he responded; "you mustn"t take that view of it. I am decently in love with my work--a work that not a few wise men have agreed could best be done alone. I don"t think there will be any other woman. You see, there is only one Virginia. Shall we go in now?"
She nodded, but when they reached the Rosemary the returning engine was rattling down upon the open siding. Virginia drew back.
"I don"t want to meet Uncle Somerville just now," she confessed.
"Can"t we climb up to the observation platform at the other end of the car?"
He said yes, and made the affirmative good by lifting her in his arms over the high railing. Once safely on the car, she bade him leave her.
"Slip in quietly and they won"t notice," she said. "I"ll come presently."
Calvert obeyed, and Virginia stood alone in the darkness. Down in the Utah construction camp lights were darting to and fro; and before long she heard the hoa.r.s.e puffs of the big octopod, betokening activities.
She was shivering a little in the chill wind sliding down from the snow-peaks, yet she would not go in until she had made sure. In a little time her patience was rewarded. The huge engine came storming up the grade on the new line, pushing its three flat-cars, which were black with clinging men. On the car nearest the locomotive, where the dazzling beam of the headlight p.r.i.c.ked him out for her, stood Winton, braced against the lurchings of the train over the uneven track.
"G.o.d speed you, my--love!" she murmured softly; and when the gloom of the upper canyon cleft had engulfed man and men and storming engine she turned to go in.
She was groping for the door-k.n.o.b in the darkness made thicker by the glare of the pa.s.sing headlight when a voice, disembodied for the moment, said: "Wait a minute, Miss Carteret; I"d like to have a word with you."
She drew back quickly.
"Is it you, Mr. Jastrow? Let me go in, please."
"In one moment. I have something to say to you--something you ought to hear."
"Can"t it be said on the other side of the door? I am cold--very cold, Mr. Jastrow."
It was his saving hint, but he would not take it.
"No, it must be said to you alone. We have at least one thing in common, Miss Carteret--you and I: that is a proper appreciation of the successful realities. I--"
She stopped him with a quick little gesture of impatience.
"Will you be good enough to stand aside and let me go in?"
The keen breath of the snow-caps was summer-warm in comparison with the chilling iciness of her manner; but the secretary went on unmoved:
"Success is the only thing worth while in this world. Winton will fail, but I shan"t. And when I do succeed, I shall marry a woman who can wear the purple most becomingly."
"I hope you may, I"m sure," she answered wearily. "Yet you will excuse me if I say that I don"t understand how it concerns me, or why you should keep me out here in the cold to tell me about it."
"Don"t you? It concerns you very nearly. You are the woman, Miss Carteret."
"Indeed? And if I decline the honor?"
The contingency was one for which the suitor seemed not entirely prepared. Yet he evinced a willingness to meet the hypothesis in a spirit of perfect candor.
"You wouldn"t do that, definitely, I fancy. It would be tantamount to driving me to extremities."
"If you will tell me how I can do it "definitely," I shall be most happy to drive you to extremities, or anywhere else out of my way,"
she said frigidly.
"Oh, I think not," he rejoined. "You wouldn"t want me to go and tell Mr. Darrah how you have betrayed him to Mr. Winton. I had the singular good fortune to overhear you conversation--yours and Mr. Winton"s, you know; and if Mr. Darrah knew, he would cut you out of his will with very little compunction, don"t you think? And, really, you mustn"t throw yourself away on that sentimental Tommy of an engineer, Miss Virginia. He"ll never be able to give you the position you"re fitted for."