he asked, not daring to antic.i.p.ate the answer; but Gertrude parried the direct question.
"What do two people who are trying to be very young and foolish and irresponsible know about secrets?" she demanded. "You are beating about the bush, and I won"t have it. Tell me!"
For reply, he took the telegram from his pocket, opened it, smoothed it carefully on his knee, and handed it to her. She read it at a glance, and a faint flush came and went in her cheek, but whether of vexation or not he could not determine.
"You are very daring," she said, pa.s.sing the square of paper back to him, and her voice was so low that he barely caught the words.
"You told me I wasn"t to do anything that I meant to do: I certainly did not premeditate intercepting your telegrams--or answering them," he added.
"Then you have answered it? How?"
He turned the paper over and wrote his reply on the back, word for word.
"You dared to say that to my father!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"
"Under some circ.u.mstances, I think I could dare anything. But you are angry, as I said you"d be."
"Of course I am--very. I demand to be taken back to Denver this minute."
"Do you mean that?"
"Didn"t I say it?"
Brockway tried in vain to read a contradiction in her face, but the steady eyes were veiled, and it is the eyes that speak when the lips are silent.
"I"m sorry," he began; "it meant a great deal to me, but I know it was inexcusable. I"ll go and tell Burton, and you can go back from the Forks, where the trains meet."
Now Gertrude had builded upon the supposition that she was safe beyond the reach of recall, and she made haste to retract.
"Yes, do!" she said, tragically; "make me go down on my knees and beg you not to--I"ll do it, if you insist. How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"
The swift little recantation gave Brockway a glimpse into her personality which was exceedingly precious while it lasted. A man may fall in love with a sweet face on slight provocation and without preliminaries, but he knows little of the height and depth of pa.s.sion until a.s.sociation has taught him. But love of the instantaneous variety has this to commend it, that its demands are modest and based upon things visible. Wherefore, certain small excellences of character in the subject, brought to light by a better acquaintance, come in the nature of so many ecstatic little surprises.
That is the man"s point of view. The woman takes the excellences for granted, and if they are lacking, one of two things may happen: a great smashing of ideals, or an attack of heavenly blindness. Gertrude was of the tribe of those who go blind; and deep down in her heart she rejoiced in Brockway"s audacity. Hence it was only for form"s sake that she said, "How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"
"I humiliate you!" he repeated, quite aghast at the bare suggestion.
"Not knowingly, you may be very sure. But about the telegram; you are not angry with me because I was desperate enough to answer it without having first shown it to you?"
"I said I was, and so I must be. But I don"t see how you could have done otherwise--not after you had promised not to let anything interfere. Do you think Mr. Burton had a telegram, too?"
"I was just wondering," Brockway rejoined, reflectively. "I think we are safe in a.s.suming that he hadn"t."
"I don"t care; I"m not going back," said Gertrude, with fine determination. "Papa gave me this day, early in the morning, and I"m going to keep it. What do you think of an irresponsible young person who says such an unfilial thing as that?"
"You wouldn"t believe me if I told you what I think."
"Try me and see."
"That is one of the things I don"t dare--not yet."
"You"d better not abate any of your daring; you"ll need it all when we get back," laughed Gertrude, speaking far better than she knew.
"To take the consequences of my impudence?"
"Yes. You don"t know my father; he is steel and ice when he is angry."
Remembering the object-lesson on the station platform in Denver, Brockway ventured to dissent from this, though he was politic enough not to do so openly.
"You think he will be very angry, then?"
"Indeed I don"t--I know it."
"I"m sorry; but I"m afraid he will be angrier yet, before long."
"Why?"
"You read my message: I asked him to answer at Beaver Brook. He"ll be pretty sure to send you a peremptory order to turn back from Forks Creek, won"t he?"
"Why, of course he will; and I"ll have to go back, after all--I sha"n"t dare disobey. Oh, why didn"t you make it impossible, while you were doing it?"
"I had to do what I could; and you, and Burton, and the operator, had to be saved blameless. But I"ll venture a prediction. As well as you know your father, you may prepare yourself to be surprised at what he will say. I am no mind-reader, but I"m going to prophesy that he doesn"t recall you."
"But why? I don"t understand----"
"We are due at Beaver Brook in five minutes; wait, and you will see."
So they waited while the pygmy locomotive snorted and labored, and the yellow torrent roared and fled backward, and the gray cliffs on either hand flung back the clamorous echoes, and the cool damp air of the canyon, flushed now and then with a jet of spray, blew in at the car windows.
For the first time since her father had suggested the trip with the Burtons, Gertrude began to understand that it could scarcely have been his intention to give her an uninterrupted day in the company of the pa.s.senger agent. But in that case, why had he proposed the trip, knowing that Brockway"s party would be on the train? The answer to this query did not tarry. She had caught the surprised exclamations of the Tadmorians when Brockway made his appearance, and they pointed to the supposition that his presence on the train was unexpected. And he had been evidently embarra.s.sed; and Mrs. Burton was curiously distrait and unmistakably anxious to get them out of the way before her husband should return.
These things were but straws, but they all pointed to one conclusion.
Her father knew, or thought he knew, that the pa.s.senger agent was to stay behind in Denver, and he had deliberately sent her away for the day to preclude the possibility of another meeting. And when he had discovered that the little plan had miscarried, he had quite as deliberately ordered her return.
Speaking broadly, the President"s daughter was not undutiful; but she was sufficiently like her father to be quickly resentful of coercive measures. Wherefore, when she had cleared up the small mystery to her own satisfaction, she hardened her heart and promised herself that nothing short of a repet.i.tion of the peremptory order should make her return on the forenoon train. And the shriek of the engine, whistling for Beaver Brook, punctuated the resolve.
XIX
THE FOOLISH WIRES
When President Vennor returned to his stateroom in the private car after the choleric little incident on the platform, he found his secretary waiting with open note-book and a sheaf of well-sharpened pencils.
Quatremain"s hands were a trifle unsteady when he began to write at the President"s dictation, but his employer did not observe it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Francis Vennor was deep in the undercurrent of his private thoughts--thoughts which were quite separate and apart from the unbroken flow of words trickling out through Quatremain"s pencil-point upon the pages of the note-book. Mere business was very much a matter of habit with the President, and the dictating of a few letters to be signed "Francis Vennor, President," did not interfere with a coincident search for some means of retrieving the morning"s disaster.
It was a disaster, and no less. He began by calling it a mistake, but mistakes which involve the possible loss of fortunes, small or great, are not to be lightly spoken of. By the time he reached the end of the fifth letter, he had run the gamut of expedients and concluded to try the effect of a little wholesome parental authority.
"Go out and get me a Colorado Central time-card," he said to Quatremain; and when the secretary returned with a copy of the official time-table, Mr. Vennor traced out the schedule of the morning trains, east and west.