Smiling at her welcome he drew off his glove and took from an inner pocket her ring and held it out on his hand. "I am taking good care of my souvenir."
"I hope you are taking good care of yourself," Gertrude responded, "because every time I ride in the mountains, Mr. McGraw, I want you for engineer."
Glover was saying something to her as they turned away together, but she gave no heed to his meaning. She caught only the low, pretty uncertainty in his utterance, the unfailing little break that she loved in his tone.
He was saying, "Yes—some of it thirty feet. Morris Blood is tunnelling on the Pilot branch this morning; it's bad up there, but the main line is clear from end to end. Surely, you never looked so sweet in your life. Gertrude, Gertrude, you're a beautiful girl. Do you know that? What are those fellows shouting about? Me? Not at all. They're cheering you."
CHAPTER XX
DEEPENING WATERS
The stolen interview of the early morning was the consolation of the day. Gertrude confided a resolve to Glover. She had thought it all out and he must, she said, talk to her father. Nothing would ever ever come of a situation in which the two never met. The terrible problem was how to arrange the interview. Her father had already declined to meet Glover at all. Moreover, Mr. Brock had a fund of silence that approximated absolute zero, and Gertrude dreaded the result if Glover, in presenting his case, should stop at any point and succumb to the chill.
During such intervals as they managed to meet, the lovers could discuss nothing but the crisis that confronted them. The definite clearing of the line meant perhaps an early separation and something must be done, if ever, at once.
In the evening Gertrude made a long appeal to her aunt to intercede for her, and another to Marie, who, softening somewhat, had spent half an hour before dinner in discussing the situation calmly with Glover; but over the proposed interview Marie shook her head. She had great influence with her father, but candidly owned she should dread facing him on a matter he had definitely declined to discuss.