For the rest he warmed to the sheer beauty of the spot. Vancouver spreads largely over rolling hills and little peninsular juttings into the sea. From its eminences there sweep unequalled views over the Gulf of Georgia and northwestward along towering mountain ranges upon whose lower slopes the firs and cedars marshal themselves in green battalions. From his hotel window he would gaze in contented abstraction over the tidal surges through the First Narrows and the tall masts of shipping in a spacious harbor, landlocked and secure, stretching away like a great blue lagoon with motor craft and ferries and squat tugs for waterfowl. Thompson loved the forest as a man loves pleasant, familiar things, and next to the woods his affection turned to the sea. Here, at his hand, were both in all their primal grandeur. He was very sure he would like Vancouver.
Whether the fact that he encountered the Carrs before he was three days in town, had dinner at their home, and took Sophie once to luncheon at the Granada Grill, had anything to do with this conclusion deponent sayeth not. To be sure he learned with the first frank gleam in Sophie's gray eyes that she still held for him that mysterious pulse-quickening lure, that for him her presence was sufficient to stir a glow no other woman had ever succeeded in kindling ever so briefly. But he had acquired poise, confidence, a self-mastery not to be disputed. He said to himself that he could stand the gaff now. He could face facts. And he said to himself further, a little wistfully, that Sophie Carr was worth all the pangs she had ever given him—more.
He could detect no change in her. That was one of the queer, personal characteristics she possessed—that she could pass beyond his ken for months, for years he almost believed, and when he met her again she would be the same, voice, manner, little tricks of speech and gesture unchanged. Meeting Sophie after that year was like meeting her after a week. Barring the clothes and the surroundings that spoke of ample means tastefully expended, the general background of her home and associates, she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of cold logic and primitive passion the Sophie Carr of Lone Moose had revealed to him. He was not sure if he desired to explore in that direction. The old scars remained. He shrank from acquiring new ones, yet perforce let his thought dwell upon her with reviving concentration. After all, he said to himself, it was on the knees of the gods.
At any rate he was not to be deterred from his project. He had served his apprenticeship in the game. He was eager to try his own wings in a flight of his own choosing.
Since he had evolved a definite plan of going about that, he entered decisively upon the first step. Upon reaching San Francisco he bearded John P. Henderson in his mahogany den and outlined a scheme which made that worthy gentleman's eyes widen. He heard Thompson to an end, however, with a growing twinkle in those same, shrewd, worldly-wise orbs, and at the finish thumped a plump fist on his desk with a force that made the pen-rack jingle.
"Damned if I don't go you," he exclaimed. "I said in the beginning you'd make a salesman, and you've made good. You'll make good in this. If you don't it isn't for lack of vision—and nerve."
"Nerve," he chuckled over the word. "You know it isn't good business for me. I'll be losing a valuable man off my staff, and I'll be taking longer chances than it has ever been my policy to take. Your only real asset is—yourself. That isn't a negotiable security."
"Not exactly," Thompson returned. "Still in your business you are compelled—every big business is compelled—to place implicit trust in certain men. From a commercial point of view this move of mine should prove even more profitable to you than if I remain on your staff as a salesman—provided your estimate of me, and my own estimate of myself, is approximately correct. You must have an outlet for your product. I will still be making money for you. In addition I shall be developing a market that will, perhaps before so very long, absorb a tremendous number of cars."
"Oh, there's no argument. I'm committed to the enterprise," Henderson declared. "I believe in you, Thompson. Otherwise I couldn't see your proposition with a microscope. Well, I'll embody the various points in a contract. Come in this afternoon and sign up."
As easily as that. Thompson went down the half-flight of stairs still a trifle incredible over the ease with which he had accomplished a stroke that meant—oh, well, to his sanguine vision there was no limit.