Now Brockway inferred, naturally, that Gertrude's father had come to have it out with him, and for the first five minutes he waited nervously for the President to begin. Then it occurred to him that possibly Mr. Vennor had come to accord him the interview which Gertrude had promised to procure for him; and he spent five other minutes of tongue-tied embarrassment trying to pull himself together sufficiently to state his case with becoming clarity and frankness. The upshot of all this was that they sat smoking solemnly and in phlegmatic silence for upwards of a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time the President rose and tossed his cigar-butt out of the window. "Going on through with your people, are you?" he said, steadying himself by the door-jamb. "Yes; as far as Salt Lake," Brockway replied, wondering if he ought to apologize for the intention. "H-m; changed your plans rather suddenly, didn't you?" "The party changed them; I wasn't notified till ten minutes before train-time." "No? I suppose you didn't know we were going on to-night, either, did you? or did the despatcher tell you?" "No one told me. I knew nothing of it till I saw the Naught-fifty in the train." "And that was?----" "Just at the last moment--after the train had started, in fact." "Ah. Then I am to understand that our movements have nothing to do with your being here now?" Brockway had begun by being studiously deferential and placable, but the questions were growing rather personal. "You are to understand nothing of the sort," he replied. "On the contrary, I am here solely because you saw fit to change your itinerary." President Vennor was so wholly unused to anything like a retort from a junior and an inferior that he sat down in the opposite seat and felt mechanically in his pockets for a cigar. Brockway promptly capped the climax of audacity by offering one of his own, and the President took it absently. "It is scarcely worth your while to be disrespectful, Mr. Brockway," he said, when the cigar was alight. "I don't mean to be." "But you intercepted my telegram this morning, and sent me a most impertinent reply." "I did; and a little while before that, you had tried to knock me down." "So I did, but the provocation was very considerable; you must admit that." "Cheerfully," said Brockway, who was coming to his own in the matter of self-possession with gratifying rapidity. "But I take no shame for the telegram. As I told Miss Gertrude, I would have done a much worse thing to compass the same end." The President frowned and coughed dryly. "The incentive was doubtless very strong, but I am told that you have since been made aware of the facts in the case--relative to my daughter's forfeiture of her patrimony, I mean." "The 'incentive,' as you call it, was the only obstacle. When I learned that it did not exist, I asked your daughter to be my wife." "Knowing that my consent would be withheld?" "Taking that for granted--yes."