“If I have spoiled you, ever so little, for some truer, worthier woman.”
“You haven't,” he responded; “you mustn't take that view of it. I am decently in love with my work--a work that not a few wise men have agreed could best be done alone. I don't think there will be any other woman. You see, there is only one Virginia. Shall we go in now?”
She nodded, but when they reached the Rosemary the returning engine was rattling down upon the open siding. Virginia drew back.
“I don't want to meet Uncle Somerville just now,” she confessed. “Can't we climb up to the observation platform at the other end of the car?”
He said yes, and made the affirmative good by lifting her in his arms over the high railing. Once safely on the car, she bade him leave her.
“Slip in quietly and they won't notice,” she said. “I'll come presently.”
Calvert obeyed, and Virginia stood alone in the darkness. Down in the Utah construction camp lights were darting to and fro; and before long she heard the hoarse puffs of the big octopod, betokening activities.
She was shivering a little in the chill wind sliding down from the snow-peaks, yet she would not go in until she had made sure. In a little time her patience was rewarded. The huge engine came storming up the grade on the new line, pushing its three flat-cars, which were black with clinging men. On the car nearest the locomotive, where the dazzling beam of the headlight pricked him out for her, stood Winton, braced against the lurchings of the train over the uneven track.
“God speed you, my--love!” she murmured softly; and when the gloom of the upper canyon cleft had engulfed man and men and storming engine she turned to go in.
She was groping for the door-knob in the darkness made thicker by the glare of the passing headlight when a voice, disembodied for the moment, said: “Wait a minute, Miss Carteret; I'd like to have a word with you.”
“Is it you, Mr. Jastrow? Let me go in, please.”
“In one moment. I have something to say to you--something you ought to hear.”
“Can't it be said on the other side of the door? I am cold--very cold, Mr. Jastrow.”
It was his saving hint, but he would not take it.
“No, it must be said to you alone. We have at least one thing in common, Miss Carteret--you and I: that is a proper appreciation of the successful realities. I--”