“I guess it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t. My girl’s like her mother, and she’s like—me. When she comes across the right man she’ll hold fast by him with everything against her, if it’s necessary, as her mother did with me.”
He rose and leaned against a pillar, with a curious look in his face.
“The struggle that her mother and I made has left its mark on me. The friends we left in the rut behind us looked for my failure, and it seemed then that all the men with money had leagued themselves together to stop me from going on. Somehow I beat them, one by one—big engineers, financiers, financiers’ syndicates, corporations—working late and working early, sinking every dollar made in another venture, and living any way. There were no amenities in that fight until those we had against us found that it was wiser to keep clear of me.”
Then, with a little forceful gesture, he took off his hat.
“What I am, in part, at least, my girl’s mother made me. She’s asleep at last, and because of what she bore it’s up to me to make things smoother for her daughter. Madam,” he added, turning to his companion with a smile, “I have to thank you for doing what you must have figured was your duty; but in the meanwhile we’ll—let things slide.”
He turned away and left her before she could answer, astonished but a little touched by what she had heard. Still, the gentler impression vanished, and when she informed Major Kinnaird of what had been said she was once more somewhat angry with Stirling.
“It is really useless to reason with him,” she said. “The man has wholly preposterous views.”
IDA ASSERTS HER AUTHORITY
It was a hot afternoon, and Ida, who was tired of fishing, sat carefully in the middle of a fragile birch canoe. Her rod lay unjointed beside her, and two or three big trout gleamed in the bottom of the craft, while Weston, who knelt astern, leisurely dipped the single-bladed paddle. Dusky pines hung over the river, wrapping it in grateful shadow, through which the water swirled crystal clear, and the canoe moved slowly down-stream across the slack of an eddy. Farther out, the stream frothed furiously among great boulders and then leaped in a wild white rush down a rapid, though here and there a narrow strip of green water appeared in the midst of the latter. The deep roar it made broke soothingly through the drowsy heat, and Ida listened languidly while she watched the pines slide past.