The father’s chuckle was good-naturedly derisive.
“That’s sheer girl-talk—the sisterly business, and the other—and it isn’t like you to try to throw dust, Vinnie. We’ll clear the air in that quarter, once for all. I haven’t any objections. David’s a good boy; a good son of a mighty good father. If he inherits some of Adam’s finicky notions, I suppose that can’t be helped. He’s as poor as Job’s turkey, but I can make him a rich man for you if you don’t insist on chucking too many stones in front of the wheels. You can’t marry a poor man, you know; you haven’t been brought up right.”
It was just here that the daughter of profitable contracts showed her first touch of warmth.
“You have some other reason for sending David to the work in Powder Gap,” she said accusingly. “You know you have always made it your boast that you never mix business and sentiment.”
“Maybe this was one time when business and sentiment happened to trot in double harness”—with a grim smile. “If you’re figuring on being a contracting engineer’s wife some time, you’ll have to throw away some of your highbrow college notions and get down to the practical things. One way and another, we’ve been getting in Dutch with the railroad people out yonder on the Short Line. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know there has been quarreling almost from the beginning.”
“Well, Ford, the president of the P. S-W. system, contends that we have a set of crooks in charge out there—this in spite of the fact that some understrapper of his on the ground has hired Lushing, the biggest of the crooks. Ford knows David’s family, and the straight-backed honest old stock there is in the Vallorys. I’m killing two birds with one cartridge. With Adam Vallory’s boy in charge for us at Powder Gap, Ford may rest easier, and maybe he’ll make it a little easier for us. And, by giving David his boost, I’m fixing it so you won’t have to marry a poor man.”
“I’m not talking about marrying; I’m talking about the soul of a man,” was the quick retort. “It is in your hands to keep David Vallory true to his ideals, or to make him like other men who have one conscience for their personal relations and another for business. David is more loyal to you than your own son would be, if you had one; after what you did for his father last summer he would go through fire and water for you. It isn’t right or just for you to use so fine a thing as his gratitude and make it the means of his undoing!”
Again the big man in the opposite chair fell silent. When he spoke again it was to say:
“You’re all wrong, Vinnie, girl; wrong and a little bit wrought up. You are carried away by your own impossible notions of the golden-rule in business, and all that—things that you know about only by hearsay. You won’t take it amiss if the old daddy has his notions, too, will you? Just the same, we’re chums, little girl, and we won’t fight about a little thing like that. I’ll see to it that David doesn’t have to stick his fingers into the tar-barrel, if that’s what you want. Now run along to bed.”