"Well, and what right has the public to come prying into our private affairs?" interrupted Roger again. "It's none of their business. This is supposed to be a free country. Why don't you give law-abiding private citizens a little freedom and privacy? You force your way in where you aren't wanted and insult us and then say it's because the public wants to know. What business is it of the public's what we do and what we think?"
The stranger smiled benignly.
"My dear young man," he said calmly, as he folded up his newspaper and fitted it into his pocket. "That's old, old stuff. You're 'way behind the times. That rode into the discard on the tumbrels of the Revolution. As an individual, nobody cares a rap about you. As the possessor of a great fortune, the public is very keenly interested in your lightest thought. But I'm not going to attempt to give you a lesson in elementary history. Your sister can, I am sure, do that for me."
He turned to her with the same galling indifference that had so offended Roger before. She could not but admire the assurance of his manner in the face of such open hostility.
"Miss Wynrod," he went on calmly, "I do hope you will talk to me frankly. Won't you tell me what you honestly think of your relations, first to this business at Algoma, and then ..."
"Don't say a word," interrupted Roger. "Remember the sheet he represents."
Judith did remember, and the recollection made her angry. She smarted still at the cartoons and denunciatory editorials in which she had so frequently been singled out for attack.
"Don't you think it's just a little curious, Mr. Good," she asked quietly, "that you should come to me in this way when you must know how your own paper has treated me?"
A pained expression crossed his eyes.
"It is a little queer," he admitted. "And honestly I don't like the roasts they give you any better than you do. But don't you see that in a way you're responsible for them? You never come back. You just hide. People don't know what you think. All they see is the results—what you do—or what they think you do ... and that amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? Now if you'd just discuss the Algoma situation, and give me some idea of what you think its causes are, and what part you think you ought to play in making things better, it'll go a long way toward making the public understand you better and sympathise with you. They think that life's a rose garden to you, you know. They never dream that you have troubles, too. You never tell them. All you show is the contented side of your life, the luxury, the pleasure, the idleness. Why not take them into your confidence?"