XI
AN ARRIVAL IN TRANSIT
When Gertrude bade Brockway good-night, she changed places for themoment with a naughty child on its way to face the consequences of amisbehavior, entering the private car with a childish consciousness ofwrong-doing fighting for place with a rather militant determination tomeet reproof with womanly indifference. Much to her relief, she foundher father alone, and there was no distinguishable note of displeasurein his greeting.
"Well, Gertrude, did you enjoy your little diversion? Sit down and tellme about it. How does the cab compare with the sitting-room of a privatecar?"
The greeting was misleading, but she saw fit to regard it as merely thehandshaking which precedes a battle royal.
"I enjoyed it much," she answered, quietly. "It was very exciting; andvery interesting, too."
"Ah; I presume so. And your escort took good care of you--made you quitecomfortable, I suppose."
"Yes."
Mr. Vennor leaned back in his chair and regarded her gravely through theswirls of blue smoke curling upward from his cigar. "Didn't it strikeyou 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 uphasty fortifications. "Mr. Brockway is not a stranger; you may rememberthat we became quite well acquainted----"
"Pardon me," the President interrupted; "that is precisely the point atwhich I wished to arrive--your present estimate of this young man. Ihave nothing to say about your little diversion on the engine. You areold enough to settle these small questions of the proprieties foryourself. But touching this young mechanic, it might be as well for usto understand each other. Have you fully considered the probableconsequences of your most singular infatuation?"
It was a ruthless question, and the hot blood of resentment set itssignals flying in Gertrude's cheeks. Up to that evening, she had thoughtof the passenger agent only as an agreeable young man of a somewhatunfamiliar type, of whom she would like to know more; but Brockway'smoment of abandonment in the cab of the 926 had planted a seed whichthreatened to germinate quickly in the warmth of the present discussion.
"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," she said, picking andchoosing among the phrases for the least incendiary. "Would you mindtelling me in so many words, just what you mean?"
"Not in the least. A year ago you met this young man in a most casualway, and--to put it rather brutally--fell in love with him. I haven'tthe 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 thatyour private fortune hangs upon the event of your marriage under certainconditions which you evidently purpose to ignore. If, after theobject-lesson you had at the dinner-table this evening, you still preferthis young fortune-hunter to your cousin Chester, I presume we shall allhave to submit; but you ought at least to tell us what we are toexpect."
If he had spared the epithets, she could have laughed at the baselessfabric of supposition, but the contemptuous sentence passed uponBrockway put her quickly upon his defence, and, incidentally, did moreto further that young man's cause than any other happening of thateventful 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 proposedthe walk on the platform and the ride on the engine."
"Humph! you are nothing if not loyal. Nevertheless, I wish you mightlook the facts squarely in the face."
Gertrude knew there were no facts, of the kind he meant, but hispersistence brought forth fruit after its kind, and she stubbornlyresolved to neither affirm nor deny. Wherefore she said, a littlestiffly:
"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 thatthis young man's intentions are unmercenary--and I doubt that verymuch--it isn't possible that there can be anything in common betweenyou. 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 higherplane, or his the lower--though I may have my own opinion as tothat--but I do say they are vastly different; and the woman whoknowingly marries out of her class has much to answer for. Admittingthat you will do no worse than this, how can you hope to find anythingcongenial in a man who has absolutely nothing to say for himself at anordinary family dinner-table?"
"I'm not at all sure that Mr. Brockway hadn't anything to say forhimself, though he couldn't be expected to know or care much about thethings we talked of. And it occurred to me at the time that it wasn'tquite 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 manifestationof 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 ifI didn't succeed, it wasn't the fault of the subject. But that is onlythe social side; a question of taste. Unfortunately, there is a moreserious matter to be considered. You know the terms of your granduncle'swill; that your Cousin Fleetwell's half of the estate became hisunconditionally on his coming of age, and that your portion is only atrust 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 thislegacy?"
"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 afortune-hunting mechanic--a man whom you have known only sinceyesterday? It's incredible!"
"It is you who have said it--not I," she retorted; "but I'm not willingto admit that it would be all loss and no gain. There would at least bea brand-new set of sensations, and I'm very sure they wouldn't all bepainful."
It was rebellion, pure and simple, and for once in his life FrancisVennor gave place to wrath--plebeian wrath, vociferous and undignified.
"Shame on you!" he cried; "you are a disgrace to the name--it's theblood of that cursed socialist on your mother's side. Sit still andlisten to me--" Gertrude, knowing her own temper, was about to runaway--"If you marry that infernal upstart, you'll do it at your ownexpense, do you hear? You sha'n't finger a penny of my money as long asI can keep you out of it. Do you understand?"
"I should be very dull if I didn't understand," she replied, preparingto make good her retreat. "If you are quite through, perhaps you willlet me say that you are tilting at a windmill of your own building. Sofar as I know, Mr. Brockway hasn't the slightest intention of asking meto marry him; and until you took the trouble to demonstrate thepossibility, I don't think it ever occurred to me. But after what you'vesaid, I don't think I can ever consent to be married to CousinChester--it would be too mercenary, you know;" and with this partingshot she vanished.
In the privacy of her own stateroom she sat at the window to think itall out. It was all very undutiful, doubtless, and she was sorry for herpart in the quarrel almost before the words were cold. She couldscarcely forgive herself for having allowed her father to carry hisassumption to such lengths, but the temptation had proved irresistible.It was such a delicious little farce, and if it might only have stoppedshort of the angry conclusion--but it had not, and therein lay the stingof it. Whereupon, feeling the sting afresh, she set her face flintwiseagainst the prearranged marriage.
"I sha'n't do it," she said aloud, pressing her hot cheek against thecool glass of the window. "I don't love Chester, and I never shall--notin the way I should. And if I marry him, I shall be just what papacalled Mr. Brockway--only he isn't that, or anything of the kind. PoorMr. Brockway! If he knew what we have been talking about----"
From that point reflection went adrift in pleasanter channels. Howgood-natured and forgiving Mr. Brockway had been! H
e must have knownthat he was purposely ignored at the dinner-table, where he was aninvited guest, and yet he had not resented it; and what better proof ofgentle breeding than this could he have given? Then, in that crucialmoment of danger, how surely his presence of mind and trained energieshad forestalled the catastrophe. That was grand--heroic. It was wellworth its cost in terror to look on and see him strive with and conquerthe great straining monster of iron and steel. After that, one couldn'twell listen calmly to such things as her father had said of him.
And, admitting the truth of what had been said about his intellectualshortcomings, was a certain glib familiarity with the modern catch-wordsof book-talk and art criticism a fair test of intellectuality? Gertrude,with her cheek still touching the cool window-pane, thought not. Onemight read the reviews and talk superficially of more books than themost painstaking student could ever know, even by sight. In like manner,one might walk through the picture galleries and come away freightedwith great names wherewith to awe the untravelled lover of art. It wasquite evident that Mr. Brockway had done neither of these things, andyet he was thoughtful and keenly observant; and if he were ignorant ofart, he knew and understood nature, which is the mother of all art.
From reinstating the passenger agent in his rights and privileges as aman, 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 hisfinger-tips? On the lips of the men of her world, such sayings went fornaught; they were but the tennis-balls of persiflage, served deftly, andwith the intent that they should rebound harmless. But she felt surethat such a definition went wide of Mr. Brockway's meaning; ofcompliments as such, he seemed to know less than nothing. And then hehad said that whatever came between them--no, that was not it--whateverhappened to either of them.... Ah, well, many things might happen--woulddoubtless happen; but she would not forget, either.
The familiar sighing of the air-brake began again, and the low thunderof the patient wheels became the diapason beneath the shrill song of thebrake-shoes. Then the red eye of a switch-lamp glanced in at Gertrude'swindow, and the train swung slowly up to the platform at another prairiehamlet. Just before it stopped, she caught a swift glimpse of a manstanding with outstretched arms, as if in mute appeal. It was Brockway.He was merely standing in readiness to grasp the hand-rail of the Tadmorwhen it should reach him; but Gertrude knew it not, and if she had, itwould have made no difference. It was the one fortuitous touch needed toopen that inner chamber of her heart, closed, hitherto, even to her ownconsciousness. And when the door was opened she looked within and sawwhat no woman sees but once in her life, and having once seen, will dieunwed in very truth if any man but one call her wife.
Once more the drumming wheels began the overture; the lighted bay-windowof the station slipped backward into the night, and the bloodshot eye ofanother switch-lamp peered in at the window and was gone; but Gertrudeneither saw nor heard. The things of time and place were around andabout her, but not within. A new song was in her heart, its wordsinarticulate as yet, but its harmonies singing with the music of thespheres. A little later, when the "Flying Kestrel" was again inmid-flitting, and the separate noises of the train had sunk into thesoothing under-roar, she crept into her berth wet-eyed and thankful, andpresently went to sleep too happy to harbor anxious thought for themorrow of uncertainties.