“I heard the river,” said Nasmyth. “In fact, I often hear it, and now and then wish I didn’t. It’s unsettling.”
Gordon laughed in a suggestive fashion. “Well,” he declared, “most of us hear something of that kind at times, and no doubt it’s just as well we do. It’s apt to have results if you listen. You have been most of a month in the city one way or another. You took to it kindly?”
“I didn’t,” Nasmyth answered, and it was evident that he was serious. “I came back here feeling that I had had quite enough of it.”
“Bonavista is a good deal more pleasant?” And there was a certain meaning in Gordon’s tone. “You seemed to have achieved some social success here, too.”
He saw the flush in Nasmyth’s face, and his gaze grew insistent. “Well,” he said, “you’re not going to let that content you, now you can hear the river. You’ll hear it more and more plainly frothing in the black cañon where the big trees come down. You have lived with the exiles, and the wilderness has got its grip on you. What’s more, I guess when it does that it never quite lets go.”
He broke off abruptly, and just then Acton stepped out from the window. “Mr. Gordon,” he said, “it’s my wife’s wish that you should come in and sing.”
Gordon said that he was in Mrs. Acton’s hands, and then turned to Nasmyth.
“I’ve had my say,” he observed. “If there’s any meaning in my remarks, you can worry it out.”
He went away with Acton, and Wisbech looked at his nephew over his cigar.
“Mr. Gordon expresses himself in a rather extravagant fashion, but I’m disposed to fancy there is something in what he says,” he commented.