I BRIDGE (continued 2)

"Colonel Illingworth," began Meade.

"Father," said his daughter at the same time, "we have something to say to you."

"Umph," said the Colonel, staring down at them narrowly as they stepped into the full light from the dome of the platform. "Something to say to me, eh?"

"Yes."

The old man's face fell a little as every father's face falls when his daughter and the man obviously in love with her make that statement.

"Well, say it and be done with it," he continued, clamping his teeth on his cigar a trifle nervously.

"We can't say it with you there and we here. Come down, and——"

Colonel Illingworth opened the gate, lifted the platform, and descended the steps.

"Here I am," he said as he stopped by the two.

His daughter took him by the arm and they walked down the platform so as to be out of any possible hearing from the car.

"Now," she said to Meade, who followed her.

His heart was beating almost as rapidly as it had on the bridge and for exactly the same reason—fear of losing her. He tried to speak.

"Well, young man?" said Illingworth, flicking the ashes from his cigar and wishing to get it over, "you said you had something to say to me."

"Yes, sir, I have."

"Why don't you say it, then?"

"It's a very hard thing to say, sir." He looked helplessly at the girl, but she was speechless. It was his task. If she were not worth asking for she was not worth having, she might have said. "Well, sir," he began desperately, "I love your daughter, Helen. I want to marry her."

"Umph," said the Colonel again, "I supposed as much. How long have you and Helen known each other?"

"Over a year, sir, but I loved her from the very moment I saw her. I did not dare hope, I didn't dream, I never imagined, and strange as it may seem, sir, she—seems to love me."

"Seems?" exclaimed the girl softly.

"Wait, Helen," said her father, "this is a matter for me and Mr. Meade."

"And am I to have nothing to say?"

"It strikes me that you have probably had your say already."

"Yes, on the bridge," burst forth the engineer.

"Ah, on the bridge! I see. Are you sure she loves you enough to be your wife?"

"I—you see—er—a——"

"Of course I do," said Helen, realizing that it was now high time for her to come to the rescue of her lover, "and so would any other woman."

"You know, of course, that while I am not rich, I am not poor and I can support my wife in every comfort, sir," urged the man, greatly relieved by the woman's prompt avowal.

"She'll need a few luxuries besides, I'm thinking."

"Yes, of course, sir, I'll see that she gets them. This bridge is going to make us all famous and I shall have my father's influence and——"

"When the bridge is finished," said the Colonel decisively, "come to me and you shall have my daughter."

"Oh, father, the bridge won't be finished for——" began the girl.

"I accept your terms gladly," said the man, realizing that in any event they would have to wait for the bridge. "It's in the contract that we are to deliver it complete before the first of November."

"And that's not far off," Colonel Illingworth reminded his daughter.

"If it is left to me, sir, and I can stir up Abbott, we will be ahead of the contract date," said Meade.

"You understand, of course, that there is to be no public announcement of the engagement until the bridge is finished," the older man said emphatically.

"I understand, sir," answered the engineer, too happy at her father's consent to make any difficulties over any reasonable conditions he might impose. "Yes, Helen, it's all right, your father is right. This job's got to be done before I——"

"Don't say before you tackle another," protested the girl, half disappointed, and yet seeing the reasonableness of both men, while the Colonel laughed grimly.

"That's about the size of it," said the old man, "no matter how you put it. One thing at a time. Meade has this bridge on his soul, and he ought to have it, and although he may have you on his heart he must forget that until the bridge is completed and then—well, Meade, you'll be coming into our employ and I don't know anybody on earth I would rather have for my son-in-law than a clean, honest, able American with a record like yours. A man who can look me in the eye and grasp me by the hand, like this."

He put out his hand as he spoke. Meade's own palm met it and the two men shook hands unemotionally but firmly after the manner of the self-restrained practical American, who is always fearful of a scene and does not wear his heart upon his sleeve. The Colonel threw away his cigar, slipped his arm around his daughter's waist, kissed her softly on the forehead.

"I hate to lose you, Helen. I hate to give you up to anyone. We have been very happy together since your mother died, leaving you a little girl to me; but it had to come, I suppose, and perhaps I shall be glad in the end. Good-night, Meade. You will be coming in presently, Helen?"

He turned and walked away as they answered him. They watched him go slowly with bended head. They watched him climb, rather heavily, up the steps of the car—that he was an old man seemed rather suddenly borne in upon them. He stood for a moment in the light smiling, remembering, and then turned and marched within the car. He switched the light out as he passed down the corridor.

"Wasn't he splendid?" said Helen, when she had time to breathe and freedom to speak.

"One of the finest old men on earth," continued Meade. "He and father would make a great team and——"

"You and I another," she said quickly.

"If I could only live up to you there wouldn't be a pair since Adam and Eve like us."

"But it's so long to wait for the bridge. I hate to have my fate bound up in iron and steel."

"It will be ages," said the man, "and yet your father is right. My father and I have undertaken to put this bridge across and we have to do it. Our honor is pledged. I'll think more of that bridge now since its completion means you. And every blow of riveter or hammer, every grinding of steel on steel, every creak of winches, will say to me, 'Hurry up, old man, hurry up; your girl is waiting for you when the great spans are completed and the river is crossed.' What an inspiration that will be for me."

"I was interested in the bridge, before," said the woman, "but think how I shall watch it now. You must write me every day and tell me every inch that you have gained."

"Trust me, I'll measure it in millimeters."

"And now, sweet love, good-night," she whispered.

"I shall see you in the morning?"

"If father attempts to run this train away without letting me see you again he will have to leave me behind," she laughed as she looked back at him through the door.

Meade did not want to leave the car. He would fain stand on the platform near it all night long. It was completely dark except for her stateroom, where trickles of light came from around the close-drawn curtains. He did wait until that room was dark also before he went to his shack, which was built on the high land so that it faced the bridge. He could see it from the window. He lay there watching it, that bridge in which was bound up his love, his life, his fortune.

VIII THE LOVERS MAKE PICTURES ON PAPER AND HEART

The next morning bright and early—adjectives that refer not only to the morning, but to the man and, as we shall see, to the woman—Meade hurried down the platform he had traversed late and slowly because he was leaving her the night before. The men were not yet called to work, they had not had their breakfasts even. The sun had just risen. He did not expect to see anyone at that hour at the private car toward which he stepped softly, he just wanted to be there so he could be near the woman whom, in spite of the fact that they were separated by the steel and glass walls of the car, he still could feel in his arms.

We all know the proverb about the early bird and the worm. It seems almost ungallant even to think it in this instance, but Bertram Meade certainly caught Helen Illingworth because he was on hand at the break of day. She too had been moved to early rising, for as he stopped abreast of the car she came from the door and stood surprised and, like Aurora, rosy with the dawn, especially in cheeks, if an adjective so common as rosy may be applied to the flush of color that flamed beneath her sensitive skin as she saw him and came down to him.

He had not expected to see her and she had not expected to see him, and it was necessary for both of them to make elaborate explanations each to the other of this indubitable fact. Explanations are said to be dangerous; not, however, is that true when they are sandwiched between kisses. If you rise early enough, that is before anybody else, you may kiss unobserved by the world; and if you do it softly, even while you stand under the open window of a car behind the curtain of which a father nods, you may do it with impunity.

When a brief period of sanity ensued—"I came out to see the bridge," said the girl.

"I had a sweeter object in view than any structures of stone and steel."

"Knowing man as I do, I infer——" began the woman archly.

"Your deductive powers, like yourself, are beyond praise," he interrupted.

"Some lady in the field?" she concluded.

"In the car."

"But you couldn't see me," she began, with dismay well assumed.

"In my mind's eye I can see nothing else, not even the bridge. When I look at that bridge the sound of your voice speaks to me in every whisper of the wind through the steel. I can hear the swish of the silk of your dress, the grind of the slipping gusset as I did last night. I can recall the beating of your heart as I caught you and we stood rocking on the very edge. It would not have been such a bad death after all," he continued, "for we would have gone down together and the last beat of each heart would have been against the last beat of the other."

The woman looked at him. The gay badinage with which they had begun suddenly seemed inappropriate.

"It's better to live together," she said softly, "even than to die together."

"Yes, of course. But I am not sure of——"

"Me?"

"Of myself. I don't see how such happiness can come to me. I've done nothing to deserve it."

"You're making the bridge."

"A man might make a million bridges and not be worthy of one woman like you."

"I told you last night that to hear you say that, even though it is not true and I know it isn't——" she went on, stopping his protest with her hand lightly touching his lips.

"I didn't make it half strong enough," he interposed, kissing her fingers.

"It was worth all the risk and I don't know why you have any fears. I belong to you now. If it hadn't been for you I shouldn't have been here at all. My life is yours by right of conquest."

"Only for that?" cried the man.

"And by my heart's gift as well," she added softly.

"Oh," said Meade, "I can't understand it. It's beyond me."

He looked at her, fresh, white, sweet, cool, lovely, and then at himself, rough, rugged, stark, strong. Now Helen Illingworth was not fragile or delicate, but one of the charms of woman is that if she wills she can easily look that which she is not, on occasion. He knew that she was a strong, vigorous young woman, yet it pleased him to think of her then as a flower, spirituelle, daintily dependent. She looked the part and she acted it too, because she divined his wish.

She laid her hand on his arm. The light pressure which thrilled him telegraphed dependence, abandonment, trust, through the fibers of his being to his very soul. He looked down at her hand. It was not the smallest thing on earth. It was the firm hand of the splendid woman. It fell upon his arm lightly, not with the delicate touch of the hand of little use, but with a pressure of beautiful proportion and womanly tenderness.

Yet it seemed to him smaller than he imagined a woman's hand could be and the hand with which he clasped hers appeared huge and rough indeed. And it seemed so to her, too, his hand that is, yet the qualities that he deprecated in his own hands were those that she admired. She, too, was conscious of the difference between her fleecy lightness and his severe strength.

They walked up and down the platform between the bridge and the car, her hand still on his arm. By no mental process whatsoever could one conclude that she really needed support or that he actually gave it, yet both agreed on those points. Love, like Gratiano, speaketh an infinite deal of nothing, but unlike the Venetian the conversers treasure the lightest word. They were both to live on the remembrance of the glorious trivialities, from the world's point of view, of last night and that morning. Yes, they were destined to live on those, far, far longer than they dreamed.

So pacing up and down they came at last to stop beside the car. There were signs of life about it. They passed by it to the observation platform. Meade climbed up, opened the gate, let down the step, and helped his lady-love up. She invited him to breakfast, preparations for which were already under way. He had not thought about it and neither had she, although they were both possessed of healthy appetites, but it was an excuse for a further exchange of the limitless variety of trifles which make up the secret and beloved part of our most cherished recollections.

They sat together in the camp chairs talking and gazing their full. No ideas were ever so wonderful to her as his; nor to him, as hers. They had begun to plan their future on the completion of the bridge. They would go abroad when they were married. He had been everywhere and seen everything, and so had she, but now they would see them together. It would be quite different. Life would begin with the completion of the bridge.

A pencil and a piece of paper lay on the little table which had been left on the platform the night before. So still had been the summer night that the paper had not been disturbed by breeze or human hand. When Helen Illingworth rose to press the electric button to summon an attendant Meade picked up the scrap and—by what chance who knew, since he had not taken his eyes from her throughout the long morning, not even when she told him to look at the bridge—he glanced down at the paper. She turned to find him looking at it with wrinkled brow.

"What is this?" he asked.

"What is what?" she returned with a little jealousy, for it was the first moment of attention he had given to anything but to her.

He held it up to her. She saw a curious little sketch on the paper made with some care so as to show four huge webs of steel connected at the top and bottom by lacings of steel angles.

"It looks like part of the bridge," she announced with a glance downward.

"It is a part of the bridge," he said promptly. "It is one of the big compression members of the lower chord of the truss."

There Was a little trouble in his face of which she was dimly conscious, yet it was not sufficient to call for comment.

"Mr. Abbott and Mr. Curtiss were talking about it yesterday evening. Mr. Curtiss said something about its design that I happened to overhear. One of them must have drawn it. Mr. Abbott probably. I came out on the platform just before you came to dinner. Mr. Abbott was telling Mr. Curtiss it was all right. He seemed to have some doubt. It is all right, isn't it?"

"Of course, of course," said Meade. "You know it's the member we were discussing last night."

He picked up the pencil, as is the habit of engineers, and began to sketch just as Abbott had done the night before. As he talked she bent over him.

"Why," she said, "you're making a little picture of the bridge, aren't you?"

He dropped the pencil.

"It's a habit we all have."

She picked up the paper and looked at it carefully.

"Finish it," she said, handing it back to him.

"I'll make you a fine drawing of it when I have more time."

"No, just that. It came by chance just as we came to know that we loved each other."

"Didn't you know it before?" he went on, taking the pencil and laying the paper on the table while he worked rapidly.

"I hoped. Didn't you?"

"I never dreamed that such a thing could be possible."

"And I had to fall off a bridge to make you speak, did I, incredibly stupid man?"

"You did, adorably wise woman," he laughed in glad affirmation.

"It is finished," he said as he handed the rough sketch back to her. She bent over him, looking at it carefully. With a few bold outlines and expert strokes he had drawn a different sketch above the strut Curtiss and Abbott had debated over, the outreaching cantilever with the suspended span, traveler and everything just as it stood. "There," he said, pointing with his pencil to the outer end of the floor, "that is where it happened."

She pressed it to her heart.

"I don't have to do this, it is printed there without this, but I will just keep the sketch to look at it and think of it when we are parted."

"Good-morning," said the Colonel, coming out of the door of the car.