"But I ah--protest!" came with shrill emphasis from the vestibule, and the night-capped head of the gadfly was thrust around the door-jamb. "I ah--stipulated----"
Brockway s.n.a.t.c.hed the ticket-extending telegram from his pocket, thrust it into Mr. Somers"s hand, and fled without another word. One minute later he was pleading eloquently with the train-despatcher.
"Oh, say, Fred, let up!" protested the man of orders. "It"s too late, I tell you. The train"ll pull out in two minutes, and I couldn"t raise the yard in that time."
But the pa.s.senger agent would not be denied. He carried his point, as he usually did, and was shortly racing out across the platform, clothed with authority to hold the train until the Tadmor could be coupled thereto. Graffo, the conductor, was found just as he was about to give the signal, but he waited while the switching-engine whipped the Tadmor around and coupled it to the rear of the train, grumbling meanwhile, as was his time-honored prerogative.
"Like to know how the blazes I"m going to make time to-night, with them two extras hooked on at the last minute!" he growled; but Brockway corrected him.
"There"s only one," he began; and when Graffo would have contradicted him, two belated pa.s.sengers came in sight, hurrying across the platform to catch the waiting train. Brockway considerately ran back to help them aboard. It was the general agent and his wife; and Mrs. Burton made breathless explanations.
"Changed our minds at the last minute," she gasped. "John was afraid the President might not find him with his nose in his desk when he gets there." Then, with truly feminine irrelevance: "I"ve been dying to get a chance to ask you how you made out--to-day--with Gertrude; quick--the train"s going!"
Brockway grinned. "You"re the best chaperon in the world, Mrs.
Burton--after the fact."
"Oh, I"m _so_ glad. Can"t you come along and visit with us in Salt Lake?"
"Not for a king"s ransom," retorted Brockway, laughing. "You may be very sure I sha"n"t leave Denver while the Naught-fifty stays over there on----" He turned to point out the President"s car and went speechless in the midst of his declaration at sight of the empty spur-track. The glare of the masthead arc-lights left no room for uncertainty. The private car was gone.
"Why, Fred! what is the matter?" queried Mrs. Burton anxiously from the step of the sleeping-car; but at that moment Graffo swung his lantern and the train began to move.
Brockway stood staring across at the empty spur in witless amazement, but he sprang back out of the way when the step of the car next to the regular sleeper brushed him in pa.s.sing. The touch broke the spell. As he started back, the sheen of the nearest electric lamp fell fairly upon the oval medallion on the side of the moving car, and he saw the gilt figures "050" flash for a half-second before his eyes.
In a twinkling he knew what had been done, and what he should do. When the Tadmor came up, he caught the hand-rail and boarded the train without so much as a thought for his belongings left behind at the up-town hotel. The Tadmor"s smoking-room was deserted, and he went in to burn a reflective cigar, and to ponder over the probable outcome of this latest proof of the President"s resentment.
Having failed to get speech with Gertrude, he could only guess at the result of her interview with her father, but the sudden change in the itinerary spoke for itself, and thus far the guess was twin brother to the truth. But two hours had intervened between Mr. Vennor"s hasty decision and the departure of Train Number 103, and many things may befall in two hours.
XXVI
A BLIND SIDING
When the President went back to the Naught-fifty after his visit to the despatcher, he meant to tell Gertrude at once what he had done, and the reason therefore; but she had retreated to her stateroom, and in reply to his tap at the door had begged to be excused. After that, there was ample time for reflection, and the President walked the floor of the central compartment, smoking many cigars, and dividing the time impartially between wondering what had become of the other members of the party, and speculating as to the probable effect upon Gertrude"s hallucination of the sudden and unannounced flitting.
Almost at the last moment, when he had begun to fear they had gone to the theatre, Mrs. Dunham and the young people returned, full to the lips with suppressed excitement; and in the midst of the bustle of departure the two young women made a descent upon Gertrude"s room, while Mrs.
Dunham took the President aside. What pa.s.sed between them, Quatremain, who was pretending to be asleep in the nearest chair, could not overhear; but that Mrs. Dunham"s news was startling and not altogether unpleasant was plainly evident to the secretary.
By this time the private car had been switched to its place in the train, and when the steady rumbling of the wheels betokened the beginning of the westward journey, Gertrude appeared with the two young women, and there was a dramatic little scene in the central compartment, through which the secretary did not even pretend to sleep. The President"s daughter demanded to know where they were going, and why she had not been told, ending by throwing herself into Mrs. Dunham"s arms and crying as if her heart would break. And, for the first time in Quatremain"s knowledge of him, the President had nothing to say, while Fleetwell spoke his mind freely, though in terms unintelligible to the secretary, and Mrs. Dunham bore the weeping young woman away to the privacy of her own stateroom. After which, Mr. Vennor, deserted of all of them, lighted another cigar and betook himself to the rear vestibule, to what meditative end Quatremain could only guess.
The train was well out of Denver and speeding swiftly through the night on its flight over the swelling plain. The President stood at the rear door of his car, gazing abstractedly at the bobbing and swaying front end of the sleeper which had been coupled to the Naught-fifty at the moment of departure. After a time the train paused at a station, and when it moved on again the light from the operator"s bay-window flashed upon the name over the door of the following car. The President saw it and started back with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n which would have sounded very like an oath, had there been any one to hear it. Then he came close to the gla.s.s-panelled door and scowled out at the Tadmor as if it were a thing alive and perversely and personally responsible for this latest interference with his plans.
He was fond of boasting that he had no creed, but, in his way, Francis Vennor was a better fatalist than many who a.s.sume the name. When the grim humor of the relentless pursuit began to appeal to him, the wrathful scowl relaxed by degrees and gave place to the metallic smile.
It could scarcely be prearrangement this time, he decided; it was fate and no less; and having admitted so much, he crossed the platforms and let himself into the ante-room of the Tadmor.
Brockway was still sitting in the smoking-room, and he was so taken aback that he returned the President"s nod of recognition no less stiffly than it was given. Whereupon Mr. Vennor entered the compartment, gathered up his coat-tails, and sat down beside the pa.s.senger agent to finish his cigar.
Now Brockway inferred, naturally, that Gertrude"s father had come to have it out with him, and for the first five minutes he waited nervously for the President to begin. Then it occurred to him that possibly Mr.
Vennor had come to accord him the interview which Gertrude had promised to procure for him; and he spent five other minutes of tongue-tied embarra.s.sment trying to pull himself together sufficiently to state his case with becoming clarity and frankness. The upshot of all this was that they sat smoking solemnly and in phlegmatic silence for upwards of a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time the President rose and tossed his cigar-b.u.t.t out of the window.
"Going on through with your people, are you?" he said, steadying himself by the door-jamb.
"Yes; as far as Salt Lake," Brockway replied, wondering if he ought to apologize for the intention.
"H-m; changed your plans rather suddenly, didn"t you?"
"The party changed them; I wasn"t notified till ten minutes before train-time."
"No? I suppose you didn"t know we were going on to-night, either, did you? or did the despatcher tell you?"
"No one told me. I knew nothing of it till I saw the Naught-fifty in the train."
"And that was?----"
"Just at the last moment--after the train had started, in fact."
"Ah. Then I am to understand that our movements have nothing to do with your being here now?"
Brockway had begun by being studiously deferential and placable, but the questions were growing rather personal.
"You are to understand nothing of the sort," he replied. "On the contrary, I am here solely because you saw fit to change your itinerary."
President Vennor was so wholly unused to anything like a retort from a junior and an inferior that he sat down in the opposite seat and felt mechanically in his pockets for a cigar. Brockway promptly capped the climax of audacity by offering one of his own, and the President took it absently.
"It is scarcely worth your while to be disrespectful, Mr. Brockway," he said, when the cigar was alight.
"I don"t mean to be."
"But you intercepted my telegram this morning, and sent me a most impertinent reply."
"I did; and a little while before that, you had tried to knock me down."
"So I did, but the provocation was very considerable; you must admit that."
"Cheerfully," said Brockway, who was coming to his own in the matter of self-possession with gratifying rapidity. "But I take no shame for the telegram. As I told Miss Gertrude, I would have done a much worse thing to compa.s.s the same end."
The President frowned and coughed dryly. "The incentive was doubtless very strong, but I am told that you have since been made aware of the facts in the case--relative to my daughter"s forfeiture of her patrimony, I mean."
"The "incentive," as you call it, was the only obstacle. When I learned that it did not exist, I asked your daughter to be my wife."
"Knowing that my consent would be withheld?"
"Taking that for granted--yes."
"Very good; your frankness is commendable. Before we go any farther, let me ask one question. Would anything I could give you induce you to go about your business--to disappear, so to speak?"