"Too steep, I gather," said Delaine, "to be altogether safe." His tone was sharp. He stood with his back to the view, looking from Elizabeth to her companion.
Anderson turned.
"As we manage it, it is perfectly safe! But it costs us too much to make it safe. That's the reason for the new bit of line."
Elizabeth turned away uncomfortably, conscious again, as she had often been before, of the jarring between the two men.
At two o'clock the car and the engine were ready, and Yerkes received them at the station beaming with smiles. According to him, the privilege allowed them was all his doing, and he was exceedingly jealous of any claim of Anderson's in the matter.
"You come to me, my lady, if you want anything. Last year I ran a Russian princess through--official. 'You take care of the Grand Duchess, Yerkes,' they says to me at Montreal; for they know there isn't anybody on the line they can trust with a lady as they can me. Of course, I couldn't help her faintin' at the high bridges, going up Rogers Pass; that wasn't none of my fault!"
"Faint--at bridges!" said Elizabeth with scorn. "I never heard of anybody doing such a thing, Yerkes."
"Ah! you wait till you see 'em, my lady," said Yerkes, grinning.
The day was radiant, and even Philip, as they started from Banff station, was in a Canadian mood. So far he had been quite cheerful and good-tempered, though not, to Elizabeth's anxious eye, much more robust yet than when they had left England. He smoked far too much, and Elizabeth wished devoutly that Yerkes would not supply him so liberally with whisky and champagne. But Philip was not easily controlled. The very decided fancy, however, which he had lately taken for George Anderson had enabled Elizabeth, in one or two instances, to manage him more effectively. The night they arrived at Calgary, the lad had had a wild desire to go off on a moonlight drive across the prairies to a ranch worked by an old Cambridge friend of his. The night was cold, and he was evidently tired by the long journey from Winnipeg. Elizabeth was in despair, but could not move him at all. Then Anderson had intervened; had found somehow and somewhere a trapper just in from the mountains with a wonderful "catch" of fox and marten; and in the amusement of turning over a bundle of magnificent furs, and of buying something straight from the hunter for his mother, the youth had forgotten his waywardness. Behind his back, Elizabeth had warmly thanked her lieutenant.
"He only wanted a little distraction," Anderson had said, with a shy smile, as though he both liked and disliked her thanks. And then, impulsively, she had told him a good deal about Philip and his illness, and their mother, and the old house in Cumberland. She, of all persons, to be so communicative about the family affairs to a stranger! Was it that two days in a private car in Canada went as far as a month's acquaintance elsewhere?