Barbara held her hand up. "When it accomplishes anything I do; but listen," she said. "That sound isn't the discord of purposeless haste. There's a rhythm in it. It's ordered and stately harmony."
Brooke sat still, watching the little gleam in her brown eyes, until she turned again to him.
"You are going to put that rope across?" she said.
"I am, at least, going to try. There will, however, be difficulties."
Barbara smiled a little. "There generally are. Still, I think you will get over them." She looked down again at the tremendous gap, and then met his eyes in a fashion that sent a thrill through him. "It would be worth while."
"I almost think it would. Still, it is largely a question of dollars, and I have spent a good many with no great result already."
"My brother-in-law will not see you beaten. He would throw in as much as the mine was worth before he yielded a point to the timber-righters."
Brooke noticed the little hardness in her voice, and the sparkle in her eyes. "If he did, you would evidently sympathize with him?"
"Of course, though it wasn't exactly in that sense I meant it would be worth while. One would naturally sympathize with anybody who was made the subject of that kind of extortion. If there is anything detestable, it is a conspiracy."
"Still," said Brooke, reflectively, "it is in one sense a perfectly legitimate transaction."