“I am sorry I did not arrive soon enough to save you this inconvenience, sir,” he said.
Torrance smiled grimly, and there was a hardness in his voice. “You have been here a good many times, Larry, and we did our best for you. None of us fancied that you would repay us by coming back with a mob of rabble to pull the place down.”
Grant winced perceptibly. “Nobody is more sorry than I am, sir.”
“Aren’t you a trifle late?”
“I came as soon as I got word.”
Torrance made a little gesture of impatience. “That’s not what I mean. There is very little use in being sorry now. Before the other fools you joined started there talking there was quietness and prosperity in this country. The men who had made it what it is got all, but nothing more than they were entitled to, and one could enjoy what he had worked for and sleep at night. This was not good enough for you—and this is what you have made of it.”
He stretched out his arm with a forceful gesture, pointing to the men with rifles, the two white-faced girls, and the splinters on the wall, then dropped his hand, and Larry’s eyes rested on the huddled figure lying by the stove. He moved towards it, and bent down without a word, and it was at least five minutes before he came back again, his face dark and stern.
“You have done nothing for him?” he said.
