“Well,” Nasmyth replied, “as I think you’re a little hard on me, I’ll try to put my views before you. To begin with, the dam is done for.”
“You are quite sure? You built it so far once. Is it altogether out of the question for you to do as much again?”
Nasmyth felt his face grow hot. She was looking at him with quiet eyes, which had, however, the faintest suggestion of disdain in them.
“The question is why I should want to do it,” he said.
“Ah!” rejoined Laura, “you have no aspirations at all? Still, I’m not quite sure that is exactly what I mean––in fact, I think I mean considerably more. You are quite content to throw away your birthright, and relinquish all claim to the station you were born in?”
The man smiled somewhat bitterly. “I think you understand that it’s a custom of this country not to demand from any man an account of what he may have done before he came out to it. In my particular case it was, however, nothing very discreditable, and I once had my aspirations, or, as you prefer to consider it, I recognized my obligations. Then the blow fell unexpectedly, and I came out here and became a hired man––a wandering chopper. After all, one learns to be content rather easily, which is in several ways fortunate. Then you instilled fresh aspirations––it’s the right word in this case––into me, and I made another attempt, only to be hurled back again. There doesn’t seem to be much use in attempting the impossible.”
“Then a thing is to be considered impossible after one fails twice? There are men who fail––and go on again––all their lives long.”
“I’m afraid,” Nasmyth declared in a dull tone, “I am not that kind of man. After all, to be flung down from the station you were born to––I’m using your own words––and turned suddenly adrift to labour with one’s hands takes a good deal of the courage out of one. I almost think if you could put yourself in my place you would understand.”
Laura smiled in a suggestive fashion, and looked down at the hands she laid upon her knee. They were capable, as well as shapely, and, as he had noticed more than once, the signs of toil were very plain on them.