“Don't know. I reckon he and Harcourt's got something on hand. He just asked if he was likely to be at home or at his office. I told him I reckoned at the house, for some of the family—I didn't get to see who they were—drove up in a carriage from the 3.40 train while you were sitting there.”
Meanwhile the subject of this discussion, quite unconscious of the sensation he had created, or perhaps like most heroes philosophically careless of it, was sauntering indifferently towards Harcourt's house. But he had no business with his former host, his only object was to pass an idle hour before his train left. He was, of course, not unaware that he himself was largely responsible for Harcourt's success; that it was HIS hint which had induced the petty trader of Sidon to venture his all in Tasajara; HIS knowledge of the topography and geology of the plain that had stimulated Harcourt's agricultural speculations; HIS hydrographic survey of the creek that had made Harcourt's plan of widening the channel to commerce practicable and profitable. This he could not help but know. But that it was chiefly owing to his own clear, cool, far-seeing, but never visionary, scientific observation,—his own accurate analysis, unprejudiced by even a savant's enthusiasm, and uninfluenced by any personal desire or greed of gain,—that Tasajara City had risen from the stagnant tules, was a speculation that had never occurred to him. There was a much more uneasy consciousness of what he had done in Mr. Harcourt's face a few moments later, when his visitor's name was announced, and it is to be feared that if that name had been less widely honored and respected than it was, no merely grateful recollection of it would have procured Grant an audience. As it was, it was with a frown and a touch of his old impatient asperity that he stepped to the threshold of an adjoining room and called, “Clemmy!”
Clementina appeared at the door.
“There's that man Grant in the parlor. What brings HIM here, I wonder? Who does he come to see?”
“Who did he ask for?”
“Me,—but that don't mean anything.”
“Perhaps he wants to see you on some business.”
“No. That isn't his high-toned style. He makes other people go to him for that,” he said bitterly. “Anyhow—don't you think it's mighty queer his coming here after his friend—for it was he who introduced Rice to us—had behaved so to your sister, and caused all this divorce and scandal?”
“Perhaps he may know nothing about it; he and Rice separated long ago, even before Grant became so famous. We never saw much of him, you know, after we came here. Suppose you leave him to ME. I'll see him.”
Mr. Harcourt reflected. “Didn't he used to be rather attentive to Phemie?”