The Daughter of a Magnate Part 9

"It is always my misfortune to miss good things."

Talking, Glover and Marie followed Gertrude and Stumah out on the gra.s.s and across to the big platform where an overland train had pulled in from the west. They watched the changing of the engines and the crews, and the promenade of the travellers from the Pullmans.

While Gertrude amused herself with the dog, and Marie asked questions about the locomotive, Mrs. Whitney and Louise spied them and walked over. Glover, to make his peace, was compelled to take dinner with the party in their car. The atmosphere of the special train had never seemed so attractive as on that night. To cordiality was added deference. The effect of his success in the canon--only striking rather than remarkable--was noticeable on Mr. Brock. At dinner, which was served at one table in the dining-car, Glover was brought by the Pittsburg magnate to sit at his own right hand, Bucks being opposite.

No one may ever say that the value of resource in emergency is lost on the dynamic Mr. Brock. But having placed his guest in the seat of honor he paid no further attention to him unless his running fire of big secrets, discussed before the engineer unreservedly with Bucks, might be taken as implying that he looked on the constructionist of the Mountain Division as one of his inner official family.

Glover understood the abstraction of big men, and this forgetfulness was no discouragement. There was an abstraction on his left where Gertrude sat that was less comfortable.

At no moment during the time he had spent with the company had he been able to penetrate her reserve enough to make more than an attempt at an apology for his appalling blunder in the office. With the others he never found himself at a loss for a word or an opportunity; with Gertrude he was apparently helpless.

The talk at the lower end of the table ran for a while to comment on the washout, to Glover's wrist, and during lulls Mrs. Whitney across the table asked questions calculated to draw a family history from her uneasy guest. Even Glover's waiter gave him so much attention that he got little to eat, but the engineer concealed no effort to see that Gertrude Brock was served and to break down by un.o.btrusive courtesies her determined restraint.

When the evening was over he found himself at the pa.s.s to which every evening in her company brought him--the unpleasant consciousness of a failure of his endeavors and a return of the rage he felt at himself for having blundered into her bad graces. Her father wanted him to return with them in the morning to Sleepy Cat to go over the tunnel plans again. That done, Glover resolved at all costs to escape from the punishment which every moment near her brought.

When they started for Sleepy Cat, the afternoon sun was bright, and much of the time was spent on the pretty observation platform of the Brock car. During the s.h.i.+fting of the groups Mr. Brock stepped forward into the directors' car for some papers, and Gertrude found herself alone for a moment on the platform with Glover. She was watching the track. He was studying a blueprint, and this time he made no effort to break the silence. Determined that the interval should not become a conscious one she spoke. "Papa seems unwilling to give you much rest to-day."

"I think I am learning more from him, though, than he is learning from me," returned Glover, without looking up. "He is a man of big ideas; I should be glad of a chance to know him."

"You are likely to have that during the next two weeks."

"I fear not."

"Did you not understand that Judge Saltzer and he are both to be with our party now?"

"But I am to leave it to-night."

She made no comment. "You do not understand why I joined it," he continued, "after my----"

"I understand, at least, how distasteful the a.s.sociation must have been."

He had looked up, and without flinching, he took the blow into his slow, heavy eyes, but in a manner as mild as Glover's, defiance could hardly be said to have place at any time.

"I have given you too good ground to visit your impatience on me," he said, "and I confess I've stood the ordeal badly. Your contempt has cut me to the quick. But don't, I beg, add to my humiliation by such a reproach. I'm blundering, but not wholly reprobate."

Her father appeared at the door. Glover's eyes were fastened on the blueprint.

Gertrude let her magazine lie in her lap. She could not at all understand the plans the two men were discussing, but her father spoke so confidently about taking up Glover's suggestions in detail during the two weeks that they should have together, and Glover said so little, that she intervened presently with a little remark. "Papa; are you not forgetting that Mr. Glover says he cannot be with us on the Park trip."

"I am not forgetting it because Mr. Glover hasn't said so."

"I so understood Mr. Glover."

"Certainly not," objected Mr. Brock, looking at his companion.

"It is a disappointment to me," said Glover, "that I can't be with you."

"Why, Mr. Bucks and I have arranged it, to-day. There are no other duties," observed Mr. Brock, tersely.

"True, but the fact is I am not well."

"Nonsense; tired out, that's all. We will rest you up; the trip will refresh you. I want you with me very particularly, Mr. Glover."

"Which makes me the sorrier I cannot be."

"Here, Mr. Bucks," called Mr. Brock, abruptly, through the open door.

"What's the matter with your arrangements? Mr. Glover says he can't go through the Park."

The patient manager left Judge Saltzer, with whom he was talking, and came out on the platform. Gertrude went into the car. When the train reached Sleepy Cat, at dusk, she was sitting alone in her favorite corner near the rear door. The train stopped at a junction semaph.o.r.e and she heard Bucks' voice on the observation platform.

"I hate to see a man ruin his own chances in this way, that's all," he was saying. "I've set the pins for you to take the rebuilding of the whole main line, but you succeed admirably in undoing my plans. By declining this opportunity you relegate yourself to obscurity just as you've made a hit in the canon that is a fortune in itself."

"Whatever the effect," she heard someone reply with an effort at lightness, "deal gently with me, old man. The trouble is of my own making. I seem unable to face the results."

The train started and the voices were lost. Bucks stepped into the car and, without seeing Gertrude in the shadow, walked forward. She felt that Glover was alone on the platform and sat for several moments irresolute. After a while she rose, crossed to the table and fingered the roses in the jar. She saw him sitting alone in the dusk and stepped to the door; the train had slowed for the yard. "Mr.

Glover?--do not get up--may I be frank for a moment? I fear I am causing unnecessary complications--" Glover had risen.

"You, Miss Brock?"

"Did you really mean what you said to me this afternoon?"

"Very sincerely."

"Then I may say with equal sincerity that I should feel sorry to spoil papa's plans and Mr. Bucks' and your own."

"It is not you, at all, but I who have----"

"I was going to suggest that something in the nature of a compromise might be managed----"

"I have lost confidence in my ability to manage anything, but if you would manage I should be very----"

"It might be for two weeks--" She was half laughing at her own suggestion and at his seriousness.

"I should try to deserve an extension."

"--To begin to-morrow morning----"

"Gladly, for that would last longer than if it began to-night. Indeed, Miss Brock, I----"

"But--please--I do not undertake to receive explanations." He could only bow. "The status," she continued, gravely, "should remain, I think, the same."

CHAPTER X

AND A SHOCK

The directors' party had been inspecting the Camp Pilot mines. The train was riding the crest of the pa.s.s when the sun set, and in the east long stretches of snow-sheds were vanis.h.i.+ng In the shadows of the valley.