There was no reply. Bull sat staring blankly in front of him. His eyes were on the wintry sky which was still broad with the light of day beyond the window.
Presently his gaze lost its abstraction and came again to the strong, lined face of the older man.
"Yes, Bat," he said calmly, almost coldly, "I'd have to quit. I just couldn't stand for it. Nancy's got right into my life. She's the only thing I can see—now."
"Fer all she's a kind of prisoner right here, caught red-hand doin' the damnedest she knows to break us in favour of the outfit that pays her?"
Bat smiled as he flung his challenge. But his tone, his words, were no indication of his mood, or of the rapid thought passing behind his shrewd eyes. A great sense of pleasure was asurge within him. He wanted to tell of it. He wanted to reach out and grip the other's hand, and tell him all that his words meant to him. But he refrained. Another man's secret was involved, and that was sufficient. His lips were sealed.
Bull stirred restlessly.
"Oh, psha!" he cried at last, with a force that displayed the tremendous feeling he could no longer deny. "I know what you think, Bat. I'm crazy. Well, maybe I am. Most men get crazy one time in their lives when a woman gets around. It's no use. I just can't help it. I know all you're thinking. Nancy McDonald belongs to our enemies. As you say she's done her damnedest to break us. Maybe you reckon I ought to feel for her like the devil does about holy water. Well, I don't. I'm plumb crazy for her, and when spring clears up the waters of the Cove, and the Myra comes alongside, she's going right aboard, and will pass out of Labrador and out of my life. I'm never going to get another sight of her. I'm never going to get another sound of her dandy voice, or a sight of her pretty eyes, and—Hell! What's the use. Oh, I know it all. You've no need to tell me. We've made good. We've fought and won out. My contract's complete, and everything's looking just as good for us as it knows how—now. This mill. It's ours. Yours, and mine, and that other's, who I don't know about. All I've to do is to sit around with the plums lying in my lap. Well, I don't want those plums without Nancy. That's all. I don't want a thing—without Nancy. All the dollars in America can burn in hell for all I care, and as for groundwood pulp it's a damp mess of fool stuff that don't signify to me if it finds its way to the bottom of the North Atlantic. An added month of open season? What does it mean to me? Work. Only work, and flies, and skitters. An added month of 'em. Father Adam's a whole man again now, thanks to that dandy child. He'll pull right out to the forests again, and—she'll pull out too. I—"
"That's all right," Bat broke in drily. "I get all that. But why not marry the gal? Marry her an' quit all this darn argument. I guess this mill's goin' to hand you all you need to keep a wife on. That seems to me the natural answer to the stuff that's worryin' you."
His eyes twinkled as he regarded the other's troubled face.
"Is it?"