Part 25 (1/2)
”Your marriage. Didn't you and Chester settle matters between you just before dinner?”
She laid fresh hold of her courage and answered, truthfully. ”Yes, but not as you imagine. Chester asked me, because, I fancy, you told him to; and I refused him.”
She expected nothing less than an outpouring of bitter words, but she was disappointed. Once and again they measured the length of the great platform before he spoke. Then he said, quite temperately, she thought, ”So it is the pa.s.senger agent, after all, is it?”
”Yes.” She said it resolutely, as one who may not be moved.
”Very good; you are your own mistress, and if you elect to be the wife of a wage-earning mechanic, I suppose it's your own affair.”
There was so little heat in the innuendo that it seemed scarcely worth while to resent it; nevertheless she ventured to say: ”Great-grandfather Vennor was a carpenter, and I suppose he worked for wages.”
”Doubtless; but there is the better part of a century between then and now. However, I presume you have counted the cost. You lose your money, and that's the end of it--unless Chester happens to marry first.”
”What difference would that make? It was I who set the conditions of the will aside.”
”All the difference in the world. In this case, the law takes no cognizance of intention. If Chester marries first, it would be taken as _prima facie_ evidence that he had prevented you from fulfilling your part of the conditions. But that is neither here nor there; Chester is not exactly the kind of man to be caught in the rebound; and I presume you wouldn't be mercenary enough to wait for anything so indefinite as his marriage, anyway.”
”No.”
”Then you lose your money.” He could not forbear the repet.i.tion.
”I know it.”
”Does your--does the young man know it?”
”Yes; otherwise he would not have spoken.”
”No?” There was the mildest suggestion of incredulity in the upward inflection. ”Since you have made your decision, it is as well you should think so. You are quite willing to begin at the bottom with him, are you?”
”I am.”
”Because I meant what I said last night. You have made your bed, and you will have to lie on it; you will get nothing from me.”
”We ask nothing but--but your good will.” Gertrude was as undemonstrative as the daughter of Francis Vennor had a right to be, but his coldness went near to breaking down her fort.i.tude.
”My good will!” He turned upon her almost fiercely. ”You have no right to expect it. What has come over you in the last twenty-four hours that you should override the traditions and training of your whole life? Has this fellow but to crook his finger at you to make you turn your back upon everything that is decent and respectable?”
”Don't,” she said, with a little sob in her voice; ”I can't listen if you abuse him. I love him; do you understand what that means?”
”No, I don't; you are daft, crazy, hypnotized.” The gathering throng was beginning to make privacy impossible on the platform, and he led her back to the car. ”You'll do as you please in the end, I suppose, but not here or now.” He handed her up the steps of the private car and turned to go away.
”Papa--one word,” she pleaded. ”Won't you see Mr. Brockway to-night?”
”No; and if I do, it will be the worse for him.” And when she had entered the car, he went away quickly and climbed the stairs to the train-despatcher's office on the second floor of the Union Depot.
Meanwhile, Brockway had eaten his supper and posted himself where he could watch what he supposed to be the window of Gertrude's stateroom for the promised signal. He saw the car empty itself, first of Fleetwell and the ladies, and then of the President and his daughter, and while he was waiting for the latter to return, Fleetwell came back, breathless.
”By Jove, Mr. Brockway, this is great luck!” he exclaimed. ”You know Denver pretty well, don't you?”