"It isn't harmonious. Nothing is, for that matter, unless you make it so."
"Then the success of the whole business depends upon your ability to manage Elijah Berl?"
"That's about the gist of it."
"Yours must be a comfortable state of mind." There was sarcasm in the voice.
"I am speaking as freely to you, Helen, as I do to myself. I thought our standing would allow that."
Helen made no reply. She sat gazing absently into the street. She was in an uncomfortable frame of mind. Twice that day she had been swept hither and thither under influences outside herself. It was unusual for her and it was discomposing. The Las Cruces Irrigation Company had looked so safe as a permanent and a big paying investment, and Elijah Berl himself had stirred her as she had never before been stirred. And now Ralph Winston had told her in so many words that she did not know what she was about. She resented this hotly. She resented it the more strongly, because she recognized the injustice she was doing Ralph. It was long before she had herself under control. At length she turned from the street and looked at Winston.
"I had a letter from home today."
Winston responded eagerly to her changed mood.
"How are they all?"
"Just as well as ever. Mother says that father bobbed up from under that anti-debris decision like a cork in salt water. He says he is going to put up a dam that the debris commission can't look over in a week's climbing. Jimmie is his ablest assistant."