"Sure. A thousand times I'd have us be just struggling traders as we once were. Then I'd have my daddy with us, and mother would be the happy woman I've always remembered her—before those secrets."
The man stirred with a movement almost of irritation.
"There's things I can't just see, child," he said, with a sort of restrained impatience. "You're talking as if you guessed life could be controlled at the will of us folk. You guess your father could have escaped his fate, if he'd left our trade on Bell River alone. Maybe he could, on the face of things. But could he have escaped acting the way he acted? Could any of us? We all got just so much nature. That nature isn't ours to cut about and alter into the shape we fancy. What that nature says 'do,' we just got to do. Your nature's telling you to get around and help your mother out. My nature says get busy and see to things up north. Well, a landslide, or a blizzard, or any old thing might put me out of business on the way. A storm, or fire might cost you your life right here in this Fort. It's the chances of life. And it's the nature of us makes us take the chances. We just got to work on the way we see, and we can't see diff'rent—at will. If we could see diff'rent at will, there's a whole heap I'd have changed in my life. There's many things I'd never have done, and many things I figger to do wouldn't be done. But I see the way I was born, and I don't regret a thing—not a thing—except the shape Providence made me. I'm going to live—not die—a rich man, doing the things I fancy, if Life don't figger to put me out of business. And I don't care a curse what it costs. It's how I'm born, and it's the nature of me demands these things. I'm going to do all I've set my mind to do, and I'll do it with my last kick, if necessary. Do you understand me? That's why I'm glad of those secrets we're talking of. That's why I'll work to the last to hold 'em. That's why I don't mean to let things stand in my way that can be shifted. That's why I'm asking you to help us get busy. Our interests I guess are your interests."
It was another revelation of the man such as Jessie had had at intervals before, and which had somehow contrived to tacitly antagonize her. Her nature was rebelling against the material passion of this man. There was something ruthlessly sordid underlying all he said.
"I'm glad it doesn't need those feelings to make me want to help my mother," she said quietly. "Interests? Say, interests of that sort don't matter a thing for me. Thought of them won't put an ounce more into the work I'll do to help—my mother. But she counts, and what you said about her is all you need say. The other talk—is just talk."
"Is it?" The man had risen from his chair. Jessie surveyed him with cool measuring eyes. His podgy figure was almost ludicrous in her eyes. His round, fleshy face became almost contemptible. But not quite. He was part of her life, and then those eyes, so strange, so baffling. So alive with an intelligence which at times almost overwhelmed her.
"It isn't just talk, Jessie," he said approaching her, till he, too, stood in the full light of the window. "Maybe you don't know it, but your interests are just these interests I'm saying. It'll come to you the moment you want to do a thing against 'em. Oh, I'm not bullying, my dear. I'll show you just how. If a moment came in your life when you figgered to carry out something that appealed to you, and your sense told you it would hurt your mother's proposition right here, you'd cut it out so quick you'd forget you thought of it. Why? Because it's you. And you figger that no hurt's going to come to your mother from you. There isn't a thing in the world to equal a good woman's loyalty to her mother. Not even the love of a girl for a man. There's a whole heap of women-folk break up their married lives for loyalty to a—mother. That's so. And that's why your interests are surely the interests I got back of my head—because they're the interests of your mother."
But the girl was uninfluenced by the argument. His words had come rapidly. But she saw underneath them the great selfish purpose which was devouring the man. Her antagonistic feeling was unabated. She shook her head.
"You can't convince me with that talk," she said coldly. "I wouldn't do a thing to hurt my mother. That's sure. But interests to be personal need to be backed by desire. I hate all that robbed me of a father."
The man shook his head.