"Are you sorry to say good-by to Arcadia?"
She shook her head, smiling. "Not a bit; I am glad it's over, but I remember father often talking about the old days long before any of us were here. First there were just the Indians, and then the Jesuit priests. They used to paddle up the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing and then down the French River to the Georgian Bay, and so up Lake Huron round the rapids and on into Lake Superior. After them came the traders and then the Hudson Bay Company, but," she concluded a little apologetically, "you know all about that."
"Yes, I know, and now what do the people of St. Marys think about the works? Eh, Belding, what do you say?"
"They don't think very much, sir—they've got into the way of taking them for granted."
Clark laughed. "I think I know that too. But you don't take me for granted?" Here he glanced provocatively at Elsie.
The girl recovered herself with difficulty. She was only twenty-one, but beside this wizard it struck her that Belding looked immature. Clark had seized on her imagination. He was the dreamer and the prophet and as well a great builder under whose hands marvelous things took shape. Now she was filled with a sudden and delightful confusion, and Belding, watching her, remembered the night they had floated opposite the blockhouse while Clark's music drifted across the unruffled water. He felt good for his own job, but very helpless against the mesmeric fascination that the older man might exert if he would. And behind all this moved his intense loyalty and great admiration for his chief.
"Then St. Marys has produced all you hoped for, Mr. Clark?" said Elsie.
"I not only hoped but believed and worked." The answer was vibrant and steady. "Hope doesn't do very much nowadays without belief and work." He glanced at the piano. "Won't you play something?"
She blushed and shook her head. "No, please do yourself."
"I don't play in public and I never had a lesson in my life."