stammered.

"Don't make him quibble any more than he has to," said Burton, with mock
severity. "You see it's quite impossible for him to tell the truth."

The young man laughed good-naturedly. "That's the fact. I've been in the
passenger service so long that I can't always be sure of recognizing the
verities when I meet them. But to get back to the original sheep; I
mustn't go on--not beyond Denver. It would have been better for all
concerned if I had cut it short at the river."

"For all concerned? for yourself and the invalids, you mean?" queried
the curious one.

"Yes, and perhaps for some others. But speaking of the invalids, I'll
have to be getting back to them; they'll think I've deserted them. I'll
be in again later in the day."

Mrs. Burton waited until the swing-door of the vestibule had winged
itself to rest behind him. Then she arched her eyebrows at her husband
and said, "I wonder if Fred isn't the least little bit _epris_ with
Gertrude Vennor?"

To which the general agent replied, with proper masculine contumely, "I
believe you would infer a whole railroad from a single cross-tie. Of
course he isn't. Brockway is a good fellow, and a rising young man, but
he knows his place."

None the less it was the arrow of the woman's intuition, and not that of
the man's reason, that pierced the truth. In the vestibule the passenger
agent suddenly changed his mind about rejoining his party in the Tadmor,
turning aside into the deserted smoking-room of the Ariadne to burn a
reflective cigar, and to piece out reminiscence with present fact.

Notwithstanding his expressed reluctance, he had intended going on to
the Pacific Coast with the party in the Tadmor; had, in effect, more
than half promised so to do. It was the time of year when he could best
be spared from his district; and the members of the party had made a
point of it. But the knowledge that Miss Gertrude Vennor was a passenger
on the train opened up a new field wherein prudence and reawakened
passion fought for the mastery, to the utter disregarding of the mere
business point of view.

They had met in Colorado the previous summer--the passenger agent and
the President's daughter--and Brockway had lost his heart to the
sweet-faced young woman from the farther East before he had so much as
learned her name. He was convoying a train-load of school-teachers
across the continent; and then, as now, she was a member of a party in
her father's private car. T