"What is that?" George stared, wonderingly, his fine lips quivering.

"To begin with, George, I think that your bad crop this season is due largely to the poor land you rented. I noticed it early in the year and was afraid you'd not accomplish much."

"It was all I could get," George said. "I tried all around, but every other small farm either was to be worked by the owner or was rented already. It was root hog or die with me, Mr. Saunders."

"You have seen the Warner farm, haven't you?" the banker inquired.

"You bet I have!" George responded. "It is the prettiest small place in this valley."

"Well, I bought it the other day for two thousand dollars," Saunders said. "Warner owed me some money, and I had to take the farm to secure myself. Things like that often come up in a bank, you know."

"Well, you are safe in it, Mr. Saunders," George said. "You never could lose in a deal like that. It has a good house on it, and every foot of the land is rich. It has a fine strip of woodland, too."

"I really have no use for the place," Saunders went on, more awkwardly.

"If it adjoined my plantation I would like it better, but it is too far away for my manager to see it often. I want to sell it, and it struck me that if you could be persuaded to give up this Western idea maybe you could take it off my hands at what it cost me."

"I? huh! That _is_ a joke, Mr. Saunders," George laughed. "If farms were going at ten cents apiece I couldn't buy a pig-track in a free mud-hole."

"I wouldn't require the money down," Saunders went on, still clumsily.

"In fact, I could give you all the time you wanted to pay for it. I know you are going to succeed--I know it as well as I know anything; and you ought to own your own place. I am willing to advance money for your supplies--and some to get married on, too. You and your sweetheart could be very snug in that little house."

George stared like a man waking from a perplexing dream. His toil-hardened, sun-browned hands were visibly quivering, his mouth was open, his lower lip twitching.

"You _can't_ mean it--you _can't_ be in earnest!" he gasped, leaning heavily against the door-jamb, actually pale with excitement.

"Yes, I mean it, George." Saunders put his hand on the broad shoulder again. "And I hope you will take me up. You will be doing me a favor, you see. I lend money every day to men I don't trust half as much as I do you."

At this juncture Dolly hurried down the aisle, a look of fresh anxiety on her face. "What is the matter, George?" she asked, eying her brother in surprise. "What has happened?"

Falteringly and with all but sobs of elation, George explained Saunders's proposition. "Did you ever in your life think of such a thing?" he cried. "Dolly, I'm going to take him up. If he is willing to risk me I'll take him up. I'll work my fingers to the bone rather than see him lose a cent. I'm going to take him up--I tell you, Sis, I'm going to take him up!"

Dolly said nothing. A glow of boundless delight suffused her face, rendering her unspeakably beautiful. Her eyes had a depth Saunders had never beheld before. He saw her round breast quiver and expand in tense agitation. She put her arm about her brother's neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then, without a word, her hand on her lips as if to suppress a rising sob, she turned back into the schoolhouse and, with head down, went to her desk, where she sat with her back to the door.

"She's gone off to cry," George chuckled. "She's that way. She never gives up in trouble, but when she is plumb happy like she is now she can't hold in. Look, I told you so--she's wiping her eyes, dear, dear old girl. Now, I'm going to run over and tell Ida. Lord, Lord, Mr.

Saunders, she'll be tickled to death! Just this morning I told her I was going away. Good-by; G.o.d bless you!"

When George was gone Saunders stood at the door and wistfully looked in at Dolly. An impulse that was almost overpowering drew him to her, but he put it aside.

"She wants to be alone," he reflected. "If I went now, feeling like this, I'd say something I ought not to say and be sorry I imposed on her at such a time. No, I will have to wait. I have waited all these years, and I can wait longer. To win I could wait to the end of time."

Turning, he strode into the wood. Deeper and deeper he plunged, headed toward the mountain, feeling the cooling shade of the mighty trees, whose branches met and interlaced overhead. Reaching a mossy bank near a limpid stream, he threw himself down and gave himself up to reveries.

CHAPTER V

Mostyn took long solitary walks. His habit of morbid introspection had grown and become a fixed feature of his life. Even while occupied with business his secret self stood invisible at his elbow whispering, ever whispering things alien from material holdings or profit--matters unrelated to speculative skill or judgment.

He had wandered into the suburbs of the city one afternoon, and, happening to pa.s.s an isolated cottage at the side of the road, he was surprised to see Marie Winship coming out. She smiled cordially, nodded, signaled with her sunshade, and hurried through the little gate toward him. He paused, turned, and stood waiting for her. He had not seen her, even at a distance, for nearly a year, and her improved appearance struck him forcibly. Her color was splendid, her eyes were sparkling and vivacious. She was perfectly groomed and stylishly attired.

"Why, what are you doing away out here?" he asked, secretly and recklessly soothed by the sight of her, for in her care-free way she, at least, was a living lesson against the folly of taking the rebuffs of life too seriously.

She smiled, holding out her gloved hand in quite the old way, which had once so fascinated his grosser senses. "Mary Long, my dressmaker, lives here." She glanced at him half chidingly from beneath her thick lashes.

"I come all the way out here to save money. You think I am extravagant, d.i.c.k, but that is the sort of thing I have to do to make ends meet.

Mary is making me a dream of a frock now for one-fourth of what your high and mighty _Frau_ would pay for it in New York."

"Always hard up," Mostyn said. "You never get enough to satisfy you."

She smiled coquettishly. "I was born that way," she answered. "My brother sends me money often. He has never forgotten how you and I got him out of that awful hole. He has gone into the wholesale whisky business and is doing well. He paid me back long ago."

"And you blew it in, of course?" Mostyn said, lightly.

"Yes, that's how I got that last New York trip," she nodded, merrily.

"d.i.c.k, that was one month when I really _lived_. Gee! if life could only be like that I'd ask nothing more of the powers that rule; I certainly wouldn't."

"But life can't possibly be like that," he returned, gloomily. "Even that would pall on you in time. I am older than you, Marie, and I know what I am talking about. We can go just so far and no farther."

"Poof! piffle!" It was her old irresponsible e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "Life is what you make it. 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you.' Eat, drink, and be merry--that is my motto. But, say, d.i.c.k"--she was eying his face with slow curiosity--"what is the matter? You look like a grandfather. You are thin and peaked and nervous-looking. But I needn't ask--I know."

"You know!" he repeated, sensitively. "I am working pretty hard for one thing, and--"

"Poof!" She snapped her fingers. "You used to get fat on work. It isn't that, d.i.c.k, and you needn't try to fool me. I know you from the soles of your feet to the end of the longest hair on your head."

He avoided her fixed stare. "I'm not making money as I did once. Many of my investments have turned out badly. I seem to have lost my old skill in business matters."

"I was sure you would when you married," the woman said, positively; and he flinched under the words as under a lash. "A man of your independent nature can't sell himself and ever do any good afterward.

You lost your pride in that deal, d.i.c.k, and pride was your motive power. You may laugh at me and think I am silly, but I am speaking truth."

"You ought not to say those things," he said, resentfully.

"I will say exactly what I like," she retorted, cold gleams flashing from her eyes. "You never cared a straw for that vain, stuck-up woman.

d.i.c.k, I hate her--from the bottom of my soul, I despise her, and she knows it. Whenever I pa.s.s her she takes pains to sneer at me. For one thing, I hate her for the way she is treating you and your child. d.i.c.k, that boy is the sweetest, prettiest creature I ever saw, and not a bit like her. One day I pa.s.sed your house when he happened to be playing outside the gate. His nurse neglects him. Automobiles were pa.s.sing, and I was afraid he might get run over. No one was in sight, and so I stopped and warned him. I fell in love with the little darling. Oh, he is so much like you; every motion, every look, every tone of voice is yours over and over! He took my hand and thanked me like a little gentleman. I stooped down and kissed him. I couldn't help it, d.i.c.k. I have always loved children. I went further--the very devil must have been in me that day. I asked him which he loved more, you or his mother. He looked at me as if surprised that any one should ask such a question, and do you know what he answered?"

"I can't imagine," Mostyn replied. "He is so young that--"

"d.i.c.k, he said: 'Why, Daddy, of course. Daddy is good to me.'"

A subtle force rising from within seized Mostyn and shook him sharply.

He made an effort to meet the frank eyes bent upon him, but failed. He started to speak, but ended by saying nothing.

"Yes, I hate her," Marie went on. "I hate her for the way she is acting."

"The way she is acting?" The echo was a faint, undecided one, and Mostyn's eyes groped back to the wayward face at his side. "Yes, and it is town talk," Marie went on. "You know people in the lower and middle cla.s.ses will gossip about you lucky high-flyers. They know every bit as much about what is going on in your set as you do. They can't have the fun you have, so they take pleasure in riddling your characters or talking about those already riddled. d.i.c.k, your wife's affair with Andy Buckton is mentioned oftener than the weather. People say he always loved her and, now that he is rich and rolling high, that he is winning out. Many sporting people that I know glory in his 's.p.u.n.k,' as they call it. They are counting on a divorce as a sure thing."

"Can they actually believe that--" Mostyn's voice failed him; but the woman must have read his thought, for she said, quickly: