For a background somber cedars lifted their fretted spires against the skyline on the southern hand. Beneath the trees the hillsides closed in and the emerald green of maples and tawny tufts of oak rolled down to a breadth of milk-white pebbles and a stretch of silver sand, past which clear green water shoaling from shade to shade wound inland. Threads of glancing spray quivered in and out among the foliage, and high above, beyond a strip of sparkling sea and set apart by filmy cloud from all the earth below, stretched the giant saw-edge of the Coast Range's snow.
The white-painted, red-roofed dwelling, with its green-latticed shutters, tasteful scroll work and ample, if indifferently swarded, lawns, was pleasant to look upon, but Thurston found more pleasure in the sight of its young mistress, who awaited him in a great cool room that was hung with deer-head trophies and floored with parquetry of native timber.
Helen Savine wore a white dress and her favorite crimson roses nestled in the belt. Though she greeted Geoffrey with indifferent cordiality, the girl was surprised when her eyes rested upon him. Thurston was not a man of the conventional type one meets and straightway forgets, and she had often thought about him; but, since the night at Crosbie Ghyll, his image had presented itself as she first saw him—ragged, hungry, and grim, a worthy descendant of the wild Thurstons about whom Musker had discoursed. Now, in spite of his weather-beaten face and hardened hands, he appeared what he was, a man of education and some refinement, and his resolute expression, erect carriage, and muscular frame, rendered lithe and almost statuesque by much swinging of the ax, gave him an indefinite air of distinction. Again she decided that Geoffrey Thurston was a well-favored man, but remembering Musker's stories, she set herself to watch for some trace of inherent barbarity. This was unfortunate for Geoffrey, because in such cases observers generally discover what they search for.
Geoffrey was placed beside Helen at dinner, and having roughed it since he left England, and even before that time, it seemed strange to him to be deftly waited upon at a table glittering with silver and gay with flowers. Mrs. Thomas Savine sat opposite him, between her husband and the host, and Helen found certain suspicions confirmed when Savine referred to the crushing of the strike. Previously, he had given his daughter a brief account of it.
"It was daringly done," said Helen, "but I wonder, Mr. Thurston, if you and others who hold the power ever consider the opposite side of the question. It may be that those men, whose task is evidently highly dangerous, have wives and children depending upon them, and a few extra dollars, earned hardly enough, no doubt, might mean so much to them."
"I am afraid I don't always do so," answered Geoffrey. "I have toiled tolerably hard as a workman myself. If any employé should consider that he was underpaid for the risk he ran, and should say so civilly, I should listen to him. On the other hand, if any combination strove by unfair means to coerce me, I should spare no effort to crush it!"
Thurston generally was too much in earnest to make a pleasant dinner-table conversationalist. As he spoke, he shut one big brown hand. It was a trifling action, and he was, perhaps, unconscious of it, but Helen, who noticed the flicker in his eyes and the vindictive tightening of the hard fingers, shrank from him instinctively.
"Is that not a cruel plan of action, and is there no room for a gentler policy in your profession? Must the weak always be trampled out of existence?" she replied, with a slight trace of indignation.
Thurston turned towards her with a puzzled expression. Julius Savine smiled, but his sister-in-law, who had remained silent, but not unobservant, broke in: "You believe in the hereditary transmission of character, Mr. Thurston?"
"I think most people do to some extent," answered Geoffrey. "But why do you ask me?"