"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole situation.
"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed.
"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties."
"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district generally!"
"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please you—and done it willingly. Still, there are these others—I owe them something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try."
Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers—simple, unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for their benefit.
"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you could make more of your life than you are doing here?"
Hunter faced the question humorously.
"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?"
Florence knew that it was most improbable, though she would not confess it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him.