"Oh, I don't know how to say it, or perhaps even how to think it. But when I see Monsieur Bongras's cynical little fling I wonder if it isn't the real philosophy, after all. Why should we be always looking forward and striving and trying foolishly to climb to some high plane where the air is sure to be so rare that we couldn't possibly breathe it?"
Brouillard's smile was a mere eye-lifting of grave reminiscence when he said: "Some of us have quit looking forward—quit trying to climb—and that without even the poor hope of reaping the reward that Poodles's quotation offers."
Miss Cortwright left her chair and began to make an aimless circuit of the room, passing the blue-prints on the walls in slow review, and coming finally to the window looking out over the city and across to the gray, timber-crowned wall of the mighty structure spanning the gap between the Niquoia's two sentinel mountains.
"You haven't told me yet what your disagreement with father was about," she reminded him at length; and before he could speak: "You needn't, because I know. You have been getting in his way—financially, and he has been getting in your way—ethically. You are both in the wrong."
"Yes?" said Brouillard, neither agreeing nor denying.
"Yes. Father thinks too much of making money—a great deal too much; and you——"
"Well?" he prompted, when the pause threatened to become a break. "I am waiting to hear my indictment."
"You puzzle me," she acknowledged frankly. "At first I thought you were going to be a thirsty money hunter like all the others. And—and I couldn't quite understand why you should be. Now I know, or partly know. You had an object that was different from that of the others. You wanted to buy some one thing—not everything, as most people do. But there is something missing, and that is what puzzles me. I don't know what it is that you want to buy."
"There have been two things," he broke in. "One of them you know, because I spoke of it to you long ago. The other——"
"The other is connected in some way with the Massingales; so much I have been able to gather from what father said."