Jimmy rose. "If one ever comes in my way, I shall try to profit by it. That is all I can say. I'm a little dazed, Eleanor. I think I'll go out and try to clear my brain again. You won't mind? I hear Prescott."
He met Prescott in the doorway, and walking past the few frame-houses found Jordan sitting, cigar in hand, upon a big fir-stump. When Jimmy stopped beside him he made a little sign of comprehension and sympathy.
"I guess I know what Eleanor has told you," he said. "In one way, it's not astonishing that she should feel what she does, and I can't blame her, though it's a little rough on me. This is a thing she'll never quite get over—while the other man lives prosperous, anyway—and, of course, I'm standing in with her."
"But it's not your affair."
"It's Eleanor's, and that counts with me. Besides, I'm not fond of Merril either."
Jimmy was touched by the man's devotion, but once more he could find nothing apposite to say, and Jordan went on:
"Sometimes, as I told you, I'm a little afraid of Eleanor, and perhaps that's why I like her. It seems to me you never quite understood your sister. Your mother made the Wheelock fleet, and it's quite likely that Eleanor's going to make the Shasta Shipping Company. I'm no slouch, but she has more brains than you and I and old Leeson rolled together. Now, you want to rouse yourself, and she has Prescott with her. You'll walk down to the steamer with me."
CHAPTER XVI
UNDER RESTRAINT
Austerly, who was essentially English and a servant of the Crown, somewhat naturally lived outside the boundaries of Vancouver. He had the tastes and prejudices of his class, and did not like the life most men lead in the Western cities, which is in some respects communistic and without privacy. Even those of some standing, with a house of their own, not infrequently use it only to sleep in, and take their meals at a hotel, while, should they retire to their own dwelling in the evening, they are scarcely likely to enjoy the quietness the insular Englishman as a rule delights in. People walk in and out casually until late at night, and a certain proportion of them are chronically thirsty. This, in case of a business man, has its advantages as well as its drawbacks, but Austerly only recognized the latter. He said it was like living in the street, and he did not appreciate being called on at eleven o'clock at night by men of doubtful character whom he had met for the first time a few days before.