“I believe that’s an old idea,” Ruth laughed. “Your father may have thought the same of you.”
Clay was quick to seize the opportunity for changing the subject.
“You’re not right there,” he chuckled. “My folks were the props of a small, back-East meeting house, and did their best to pound the wildness out of me. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t succeed, but I’d inherited the stubbornness of the old Puritan strain, and the more they tried to pull me up the hotter pace I made. That’s why I’ve given Aynsley his head, and he trots along at a steady clip without trying to bolt.”
Ruth paid little attention to what he was saying. She was puzzling about Clay’s connection with Jimmy’s affairs, searching for some reason for Clay’s evident attitude. She was not sorry when he and Osborne rose and turned toward the smoking-room, for she wanted to question Aynsley.
“Why did you turn Jimmy Farquhar out of your mill?” she asked as soon as they were alone.
Aynsley was taken by surprise.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t turn him out.”
“Then did he and his friends go of their own accord?”
“No,” said Aynsley with some awkwardness; “I can’t say that they did.”
“Then somebody must have dismissed them. Who was it?”