"I——"
Frank broke off. The promise he was rashly about to make remained unspoken. He knew he could not promise anything in his mother's name—now.
CHAPTER VII
HAPPY DAYS
Angus Moraine was a dour, hard-headed business man such as Alexander Hendrie liked to have about him. He was also an agriculturalist from his finger-tips to his back-bone, and the millionaire's great farm at Deep Willows owed most of its prosperity to this hard, raw-boned descendant from the Crofters of Scotland.
When he heard of his friend and employer's forthcoming marriage he shook his head, and his lean face took on an expression of added sourness. He saw visions of his own sphere of administration at Deep Willows becoming narrowed. He felt that the confidence of his employer was likely to be diverted into another channel. This meant more than a mere outrage to his pride. He knew it might affect his private pocket in an adverse degree. Therefore the news was all the more unwelcome.
Pondering on these matters while on a round of inspection of the far-reaching wheat-lands which he controlled, he abruptly drew up his sturdy broncho in full view of a great gray owl perched on the top of a barbed wire fence-post. He sat there surveying the creature for some moments, and finally apostrophized it, feeling that so uncanny and secretive a fowl was an admirable and safe recipient for his confidences.
"It's no sort of use, my gray and ugly friend," he said, in his wry way. "Folks call Master Alexander the Napoleon of the wheat world, and I'm not saying he isn't. But Napoleons generally make a mess of things when they marry. Their business is fighting, or—they wouldn't be Napoleons."
Quite apart from his own interests he felt that Hendrie was making a grave mistake, and, later on, when he learned that he had married his secretary, his conviction became permanent. This time his disapproval was directed at the map of Alberta, which hung upon his office wall. He shook his bony forefinger with its torn and dirty nail at the silent witness, his narrow eyes snapping with angry scorn.