"Didn't know but you'd backed out," he said, jocosely, when they had climbed aboard.
"Oh, no, indeed; we had to get word to my father," said Gertrude.
The engineer waved them across the cab. "Make yourselves at home; the 926 belongs to you as long as you want to own her. Just you pre-empt Johnnie's box over there, Fred, and make the young lady comfortable."
Brockway stuck a propitiatory cigar into the pocket of the fireman's jumper, and proceeded to carry out his instructions. Before the tardy signal came, Gertrude was perched upon the high seat, with her skirts gathered up out of harm's way, and Brockway had fashioned a pad out of a bunch of waste and tied it upon the boiler-head brace at her feet.
"It's hot," he explained. "When she begins to roll you can put your foot against that and steady yourself. Are you quite comfortable?"
"Quite; and you?" She looked over her shoulder to ask the question, and the strong red glow from the open door of the fire-box glorified the sweet face.
"Comfortable? No, that is hardly the word for it"—he tried the window-fastening, that he might have an excuse for bending over her—"I'm happy; happy to my finger-tips. Do you know why?"
He sought to look up into her face, but at that moment the red glow of the fire-light went out suddenly with the crash of the closing door, and the clangor of the bell made her reply inaudible. None the less, by the dim, half light of the gauge-lamp he saw her eyelashes droop and her lips say No.
For a passing instant the social barriers went down and became as though they never were. Standing beside her and blessing the clamor that isolated them, he said:
"Because I am here with you; because, no matter what happens to either of us in the future, no one can ever rob me of this."