"Doubtless, but they were not born in the purple."
"Some of them were, if by that you mean born with money to throw away. I suppose you might say that of me."
Brockway suddenly found the Denver eating-house cake very dry, but he could not take his eyes from her long enough to go and get a drink from the rill at the log-end.
"But you would never, marry a poor man," he ventured to say.
"Wouldn't I? That would depend very much upon circumstances," she rejoined, secure in the assurance that her secret was now double-locked in a dungeon of Brockway's own building. "If it were the right thing to do I shouldn't hesitate, though in that case I should go to him as destitute as the beggar maid did to King Cophetua."
Brockway's heart gave a great bound and then seemed to forget its office.
"How is that? I—I don't understand," he stammered.
Gertrude gazed across at the shining mountain and took courage from its calm passivity.
"I will tell you, because I promised to," she said. "I, too, have money in my own right, but it is only in trust, and it will be taken from me if I do not marry in accordance with the provisions of my granduncle's will. So you see, unless I accept my—the person named in the will, I shall be as dowerless as any proud poor man could ask."
"But you will accept your cousin," said Brockway, quickly putting Fleetwell's name into the hesitant little pause.