“I can see how it’s all coming out,” Burnham continued, as if he had not heard Villard. “You two” (Villard’s heart jumped at the words) “will go on and make a model institution of the Shawsheen Mills. I should doubt if you made a profitable one, only that I know you’ve got a mighty good business head on your shoulders; and, I say, the way Miss Shepard is developing is a caution to us men. I’d no idea she’d take such a practical turn, or learn the details so readily. Oh, I can see where it’s going to end. She’ll be the recognized head and you’ll be her first assistant. As for me, I sha’n’t be in it. I shall have resigned.”
“Jeff!” It was only occasionally that these two called each other by their boyhood names.
“Yes, I don’t think I should care to have it known that I worked under a woman, much as I admire and respect Miss Shepard. There’d be no other way, unless I married her!”
Villard turned pale with sudden, inward rage, but he said nothing.
“Don’t think I’d have much chance there, though,” Burnham went on lightly. “You’re more her style. And you’re both so much wrapped up in good works that you’ve no time for faith in each other, beyond what you waste in philanthropic effort. Miss Shepard don’t seem to be the marrying kind. I don’t believe she ever thinks of a man unless he has the merit of being an operative in the mills.”
“And since you’re bent on discussing matrimonial matters,” observed Villard, with sarcasm, “how about Miss Shaw? And when are the wedding-cards to be issued?”
Burnham shook the ashes from his cigar and looked at his watch critically.
“Marion Shaw is a fine girl,” he said. “She’s the right kind of woman to tie to; but”—and Burnham took up his hat to go out—“I’m not the marrying kind either.”
So Villard had come to understand that he must take care of his evening school as best he could alone.
Robert Fales had settled in Shepardtown. There were to be more cottages built in the spring, and to him Salome had alone confided her plan of erecting a new church which should be named for her grandfather. When the evening school began to grow, he went to Villard and offered his services as assistant, and had proved a most valuable one.