By Right of Purchase

by Harold Bindloss

"Still," he said, "what you suggest is a trifle difficult to believe. If wheat keeps its value, my life, which is now in some ways a hard and lonely one, might be changed—it is my personality that presents the difficulty. There is so much you set value on that I know nothing about, and one could scarcely expect an English girl with any refinement to be attracted by a plain Western farmer."

Mrs. Annersly smiled at him. "Well," she said, "I believe I told you I had no great fault to find with you, and I don't believe the rising generation is more fastidious than my own. In fact, it wouldn't be difficult to persuade oneself of the contrary. To be frank, I really don't think you need be lonely any longer, unless, of course, you prefer it."

Again Leland did not answer her. He sat looking straight in front of him with a faint glow in his eyes and his lips firmly set, while an unreasoning impulse seized him, and swept him away as he saw Aylmer approach Carrie Denham's chair. Perhaps Eveline Annersly guessed part, at least, of what was in his mind, for she raised her eyes a moment and glanced at Jimmy Denham, who was talking to a young girl some distance away. Jimmy was a young man of considerable intelligence, and though he made no sign, he knew that he was wanted. A minute or two later he made his way indirectly and leisurely across the room, and drawing out a chair sat down near Leland.

"You two look as if you had been discussing something important," he said. "Has he been persuading you to go out and preside over Prospect, Aunt Eveline?"

Mrs. Annersly smiled. "No," she said; "he naturally wants a younger and more attractive person, but I understand is rather afraid that nobody of the kind would look at him. I have been trying to show him that he is mistaken."

"Of course!" said Jimmy. "He doesn't quite grasp things yet. There are few sensible girls who would say no to a man with his income. In fact, I'd feel reasonably sure of getting an heiress if I had a third of it."

He stopped with a short laugh, looking straight at Leland with something that suggested a definite meaning in his pale blue eyes. "Anyway, there's no reason why you shouldn't get any one you have seen at Barrock-holme, provided, of course, that the lady in question is in other respects pleased with you."

Leland closed his lips a little tighter, for it was borne in upon him that Jimmy Denham had not spoken without a purpose, and he realised that he might be listened to if he craved permission to offer himself as a suitor for his sister's hand. Jimmy, however, was too adroit to dwell upon the subject, and, changing it abruptly, led Leland into a discussion of hammerless guns. Still, both he and Eveline Annersly realised that he had said enough, which in most cases is a good deal better than too much. As a matter of fact, his words had stirred Leland to the rashest plunge he had ever made in his life, though during most of it he had usually taken the boldest course, holding his wheat on a falling market and sowing in times of black depression when the prudent held their hand.

On the next morning he had an interview with Branscombe Denham in the library, which left him with a very unpleasant impression. In fact, the silence he forced himself to maintain hurt him, and he felt it would have been a vast relief to tell the fastidious, immaculately dressed gentleman precisely what he thought of him. Having on certain delicately implied conditions secured his goodwill, Leland set about the prosecution of his suit with a directness and singleness of purpose that was a matter of delight to those who watched his proceedings. He, however, was quite oblivious of their amusement. He knew what he wanted, and it did not matter in the least that others should guess it, too, but, apart from his obvious directness, he played the suitor with a grave, old-fashioned gallantry and deference that became him. In fact, since it was by no means what they expected from him, they wondered how he came to have it. Though Leland himself could not have told them its source, it had been his practice in the long nights, when Prospect lay silent under the Arctic frost, to read and ponder over the best of the early Victorian novelists. His mother had been a woman of taste, and he had, perhaps, unconsciously acquired from the books she had left him some of the mannerisms of a more punctilious time.

It was, in any case, promptly evident to everybody that Aylmer was outclassed. Leland's wooing was, no doubt, a trifle ceremonious, but Aylmer's savoured too much of the freedom of the barroom and music-halls. There was more than one maiden at Barrock-holme who felt that it was a pity she had not accorded a little judicious encouragement to the quiet, bronze-faced Canadian, who it now transpired had large possessions. After all, his stilted courtesy was attractive in its way and had in it the interest of an entirely new sensation.