"We have not sold much stock and do not care to," he said, "we know a good thing when we see it, and in this quarry we have a certain money-maker. It costs us a mere nothing to quarry the stone, the market absorbs all our product at a good price, and the ledge we own is limitless. Then we have an excellent manager in whom the firm trusts implicitly."
He always used "we" in speaking of the stock, that pronoun carrying a certain assurance, as he well knew, for Simmons, who had grown old and gray on the street, was a shrewd money-maker and well known to be worth a million or more.
But while Weston was happy in his prospective success, Hill was not. He was too greedy, and, narrow-minded as he was, could not wait content until the Rockhaven plum was ripe. He wanted to grasp it at once, even to ruin its fruition entirely. He railed and groaned whenever a dollar was put out, and had from the start. In his narrow vision it was so much thrown away. Every item in the press that called for outlay, the use of the thousands held by Simmons to manipulate the market, and especially the hundred or more that each week had to be sent to the island, each and all added to Hill's misery. Weston, the liberal rascal, had for a long time felt disgusted with his partner's miserly instincts; now he positively hated him and longed for the day when he could deal him a crushing blow. Both were unscrupulous schemers and thieves at heart, but of the two Hill was the worse. Not only did Weston come to hate Hill more and more each day, but he grew tired of the sight of his pinched and hypocritical face, his sunken eyes and clammy handshake—for shake hands with him occasionally he must. Then Hill was so unlike Weston in other ways it added to the feeling of disgust; he never used tobacco or drank, and held up his hands in holy horror at any lapse from the code of morality, and worse than that, if Weston let slip any word of profanity, as he occasionally did, Hill exclaimed against it.
To have one's small vices made a daily text for short sermons is unpleasant, even to the best of us.
But while Weston's hate and disgust grew apace, no hint of it leaked out, and since he was the master spirit in the Rockhaven Granite Company and in that scheme held the reins, it moved on to culmination, unaffected by Hill's whining.
CHAPTER XXV
A SUMMER DAY
The life of suspense now forced upon Winn was not agreeable. He had too much inborn ambition and energy of character, and once he had come to feel himself his own master, as his mission to Rockhaven allowed, never again could he fill a menial position and be satisfied, and the possibility of it once more seemed degradation. Then again his present dilemma was galling. He had followed Jess Hutton's advice, but no word came from the city except the weekly remittance from his firm and letters urging him to sell stock. He would not do so now, not even if those honest people had offered any price, and what he had sold was a source of dread. But no one wanted more, for the partial cessation of work in the quarry was handwriting on the wall.
And so the summer days sped by, and Winn's longing for a better understanding with Mona grew stronger. In a way he stood in a false position toward all these people except Jess, and the longer it remained so the worse it seemed, so one evening he resolved to confide in Mona.