Prescott wavered. The man was keenly anxious; it was hard to resist his appeal, and there was, after all, only a small risk that he might hear of Colston’s visit. Svendsen and his wife, who attended to the housekeeping, were Scandinavians, and could scarcely converse in English. When they addressed him by any distinguishing epithet it was always as “Boss.”
“Well,” he said doubtfully, “I can’t refuse you shelter. You can stay for a while, anyway, until we see how we get on. I’ll go up to the homestead with you.”
He had an interview with his housekeeper, who protested in broken English that harvest was a singularly inconvenient time to entertain strangers, but eventually gave away. The extra hands lately hired could be put up in the barn, and there were two rooms that could be spared. Prescott showed his visitors in and afterward watched with some amusement their surprise when they sat down to the midday meal with the lightly clad toilers from the field. During the afternoon and until late in the evening, he worked hard among the grain, but when the light was failing and he leaned on a wire fence, hot and tired after the long day of effort, Jernyngham came toward him.
“We have had very little talk so far,” he said. “My daughter, however, desires me to convey her thanks to you. She believes she will be perfectly comfortable.”
He was irritatingly formal, his tone was precise, but it changed as he added:
“So you knew Cyril!”
“Yes,” Prescott said gravely. “I was fond of him.”
Jernyngham seemed to be struggling with some stirring of his deeper nature beneath the crust of mannerisms.
“Mr. Prescott,” he said, “I may tell you that I now fear I treated the lad injudiciously, and perhaps with needless harshness. I looked upon extravagance and eccentricity as signs of depravity. It was a vast relief when I heard from Colston, whom you may have met; that Cyril had prospered and was leading an exemplary life in Canada.”
The blood crept into Prescott’s face, and Jernyngham glanced at him curiously before he proceeded.