"How would you like to go up to Silver Plume with Mr. Brockway's party?"
She knew well enough that her father's cold eyes had surprised the sudden flash of gladness in hers, but she was not minded to reopen the quarrel.
"Oh, that would be delightful," she said, annulling the significance of the words with the indifference of her tone; "quite as delightful as it is impossible."
"But it isn't impossible," said the President, blandly; "on the contrary, I have taken the liberty of arranging it—subject to your approval, of course. I chanced upon two old friends of ours who are going with the party, and they will take care of you and bring you back this evening."
"Friends of ours?" she queried; "who are they?"
"Ah, I promised not to tell you beforehand. Will you go?"
"Certainly, if you have arranged it," she rejoined, still speaking indifferently because she was unwilling to show him how glad she was. For she was frankly glad. The glamour of last night's revelation was over the recollection of those other days spent with Brockway, and she was impatiently eager to put her impressions quickly to the test of repetition—to suffer loss, if need be, but by all means to make sure. And because of this eagerness, she quite overlooked the incongruity of such a proposal coming from her father—an oversight which Mr. Vennor had shrewdly anticipated and reckoned upon.
It was 7.30, and the train was clattering through the Denver yards, measuring the final mile of the long westward run. Gertrude rose to go and get ready.
"You needn't hurry," said her father; "the narrow-gauge train doesn't leave for half an hour. I'll come for you when it is time to go."
He watched her go down the compartment and enter her stateroom without stopping to speak to any of the others. Then he held up his finger for the secretary.