"What is the condition? You seem unusually diffident to-day, Thurston."
"It is a great thing I am going to ask." Geoffrey, standing on the treacherous ledge above the thundering river, scarcely looked like a suppliant as he put his fate to the test. "It is your permission to ask Miss Savine to marry me when the time seems opportune. It would not be surprising if you laughed at me, but even then I should only wait the more patiently. This is not a new ambition, for one day when I first came, a poor man, into this country I set my heart upon it, and working ever since to realize it, I have, so far at least as worldly prospects go, lessened the distance between us."
Savine, who betrayed no surprise, was silent for a little while. Then he answered quietly:
"I am, according to popular opinion, anything but a poor man, and though those dykes have bled me, such a match would, as you suggest, be unequal from a financial point of view, unless Helen marries against my wishes. Then she should marry without a dollar. Does that influence you?"
Thurston spread out his hands with a contemptuous gesture, which his quiet earnestness redeemed from being theatrical.
"For my own sake I should prefer it so. Dollars! How far would anyone count dollars in comparison with Miss Savine? But I do not fear being able to earn all she needs. When the time seems opportune the inequality may be less."
"It is possible," continued Savine. "One notices that the man who knows exactly what he wants and doesn't fool his time away over other things not infrequently gets it. You have not really surprised me. Now—and I want a straight answer—why did you leave the Old Country?"
"For several reasons. I lost my money mining. The lady whom I should have married, according to arrangements made for us, tired of me. It is a somewhat painful story, but I was bound up in the mine, and there were, no doubt, ample excuses for her. We were both of us almost too young to know our own minds when we fell in with our relatives' wishes, and, though I hardly care to say so, it was perhaps well we found out our mistake in time."
"All!" said Savine. "Were there no openings for a live man in the Old Country, and have you told me all?"
"I could not find any place for a man in my position," Geoffrey let the words fall slowly. "I come of a reckless, hard-living family, and I feared that some of their failings might repeat themselves in me. I had my warnings. Had I stayed over there, a disappointed man, they might have mastered me, and so, when there was nothing to keep me, I turned my back—and ran. Out here any man who hungers for it can find quite sufficient healthful excitement for his needs, and excitement is as wine to me. These, I know, seem very curious qualifications for a son-in-law, but it seemed just to tell you. Need I explain further?"