"It would depend," said Jim. "Upon how much I liked him, for one thing. Of course, I would go no distance if he tried to drive."
Evelyn smiled. "Well, I suppose you can take a bold line. If one has pluck, it sometimes pays. At all events, it's flattering to feel one can be oneself. No doubt, you all develop your individuality in Canada."
"We are rather an independent, obstinate lot," Jim owned. "I expect this comes from living in a new country. When you leave the cities, you have nobody to fall back on. You have got to make good by your own powers and trust yourself."
"Ah," said Evelyn, "one would like to trust oneself! To follow one's bent, or perhaps, one's heart, and not bother about the consequences." She was silent a moment and then resumed with a soft laugh: "But unless one is very brave, it's not often possible; there are so many rules."
Jim felt sympathetic. She had laughed, but he thought the laugh hid some feeling. She was generous and strangely refined; Mrs. Halliday was conventional and calculating, and the girl rebelled.
"I expect our host broke a number of the rules," he remarked.
"He did and he paid. Bernard was not rich and when he opened the Brunstock mines nobody would help him. When he sold his farms to buy pumps and engines there was a quarrel with your grandfather and perhaps Bernard has some grounds for bitterness. I don't know if it's strange, but while Joseph Dearham was a plain country gentleman, Bernard, after getting rich in business, wears the stamp of the old school."
Jim agreed. Bernard was obviously not fastidious, like his relatives, but he had the grand manner. This was not altogether what Jim meant, but perhaps it got nearest.
"I think it's because he's fearless—one sees that," he said. "Shabbiness and awkwardness come when one's afraid."
"It's possible," Evelyn answered, with a curious smile. "One hates to be shabby but sometimes one is forced. Pluck costs much."