I thought Harrod winced.
"Hops are a very difficult growth," he answered. "I don't suppose a perfect crop is gathered more than once in twenty years. A hundred chances are against it; your father knew this well enough when he went in for the speculation. He is a reasonable man."
I knew that this was intended as a reproof to me, and I knew that I deserved it. I had prided myself on being wise and calm over the business affairs of the farm, as I should have been if I had been father's son instead of his daughter; I had prided myself that Harrod considered me so by talking things over with me as he often had done. But of late I had not been reasonable. I knew it; I knew that I was straining the very cord that I most counted upon, perhaps even to breaking-point. I knew it, I could have bitten my tongue out, and yet my wounded feelings got the better of me and carried my tongue away. I stood there ashamed, sick at heart. I wanted to make it up, I wanted to be forgiven, but I did not know what to say.
And while I was thinking what to say, the door opened, and father and mother came in. Father's face was pale, and he walked uncertainly.
"There, there, that'll do, Mary," he said, testily. "I'm all right now. The weather is a bit oppressive, that's all. I want to finish this bit of business with Harrod, if you'll leave us quiet."
Mother knew better than to say a word. Father sat down in the chair which Harrod got up to give him, and mother and I went out of the room.
My chance of reconciliation that evening was over.
I had to listen to mother's very natural distress about father's fresh indisposition, and her expressions of annoyance at its having been brought on, as she supposed, by the piece of news about "that young good-for-nothing." Then I had the tea-things to wash up with Joyce, and the clean linen to put away. And when all our work was done Trayton Harrod had gone, and I went up into the little attic whence mother had called me in the early evening, and sat down again in the dark to have it out with myself about all the puzzling events of this puzzling day.
Joyce had not yet come up to bed; I was all alone. The twilight was dead; the stars shone above—thousands of stars looking down upon me with a story of courage and hope in their bright eyes—I wonder whether I understood it!
Deborah came in with a candle. She had forgotten to give us one. I was sorry she brought it.