"I shall be quite furious if you don't. My! how close that rock was!"
The train was storming up the canyon, dodging back and forth from wall to wall, roaring over diminutive bridges, and vying with the foaming torrent at the track-side in its twistings and turnings. The noise was deafening, but it was bearable, since it served to isolate them.
"Does the compact mean that we are to have no secrets from each other?" he asked, not daring to anticipate 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, passing 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.
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 circumstances, 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."
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 passion until association 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.