“What crisis?” she asked indignantly.
“The financial crisis caused by your spending every available resource on this so-called conservation policy. To all intents and purposes you are now a bankrupt. Mrs. Vanderveldt has contributed all she can, and both you and she are afraid to tell her brother the true state of the case. You fear you will get little sympathy from him, for he is absorbed in coal-mines and railways, and both of you have already felt his annoyance at the law-suit in which you have involved him. Hence your desperate need of a capitalist. A really polite man would be a more pleasant companion than I, but he is not worth that, Miss Maturin!”
Stranleigh removed his hand from the lever long enough to snap fingers and thumb, but he instantly replaced it when he saw her determination to start the machine.
“The man of the moment, Miss Maturin, is a large and reckless capitalist. I am that capitalist.”
He released his hold of the lever, and sat upright. The sternness of his face relaxed.
“Now, Miss Maturin, turn on the power; take me where you like; dump me into any of those lakes you choose; the water is crystal clear, and I’m a good swimmer,” and with this Stranleigh indulged in a hearty laugh, his own genial self once more.
“You are laughing at me,” she said resentfully.
“Indeed I am not. Another contradiction, you see! I am laughing at myself. There’s nothing I loathe so much as strenuousness, and here I have fallen into the vice. It is the influence of that brawling river below us, I think. But the river becomes still enough, and useful enough, when it reaches the great lake at Powerville, which is big enough to swallow all these little ponds.”
The girl made no motion towards the lever, but sat very still, lost in thought. When she spoke, her voice was exceedingly quiet.