"Oh, it's not religion," she protested. "At least, it's not just going to church, and things like that, although I guess it is a more real religion, if we just understood. What are we here for, anyway? Come now, you're a man of sense and experience, and you must have settled that question in your own mind long ago. What's the answer?"
"Well, I'm here just now to tell you those cows are to be milked before—"
"Yes, dodge it! You've dodged that question so long you daren't face it. But there must be an answer somewhere, or there wouldn't be the question. There's Riles, now; he doesn't know there is such a question. He takes it for granted we're here to grab money. And then, there's Grants. They know there is such a question, and I'm sure that to some extent they've answered it. You know, I like them, but I never go into their house that I don't feel out of place. I feel like they have something that I haven't—something that makes them very rich and shows me how very poor I am. And it's embarrassing to feel poor among rich folks. Why, to-night George Grant stopped on his way home to say a word to me, and what do you suppose he said? Nothing about the weather, or the neighbours, or the crops. He asked me what I thought of the Venezuelan treaty. Of course I'd never heard of such a thing, but I said I hoped it would be for the best, or something like that, but I was ashamed—so ashamed he might have seen it in the dusk. You see, they're living—and we're existing."
If Beulah hoped by such argument to persuade her father, or even to influence him, she was doomed to disappointment. Harris listened to her patiently enough at first, but the conviction dawned upon him that she had been reading some silly nonsense that had temporarily distorted her young mind. Such foolishness, if allowed to take root, might have disastrous results. His daughter must learn to centre her mind on her work, and not be led away by whimsical notions that had no place in a busy life.
"You're talking a good deal of nonsense, Beulah," he said. "When you get older these questions won't worry you. In the meantime, your duty is to do as you're told. Right now that means milk the cows. I'll give you five minutes to get started."
Harris went to his room. A little later Beulah, with a light cloak about her shoulders and a suitcase in her hand, slipped quietly down the front stairs and out into the night.
CHAPTER IX
CRUMBLING CASTLES
At the foot of the garden Beulah paused irresolute, the suit-case swinging gently in her hand. She had made no plans for the decisive step events of the day had forced upon her, but the step itself she felt to be inevitable. She was not in love with Jim Travers; she had turned the whole question over in her mind that afternoon, weighing it with judicial impartiality, supposing all manner of situations to try out her own emotions, and she had come to the conclusion that Travers was merely an incident in her life, a somewhat inspiring incident, perhaps, but an incident none the less. The real thing—the vital matter which demanded some exceptional protest—was the narrow and ever narrowing horizon of her father, a horizon bounded only by material gain. Against this narrowing band of outlook her vigorous spirit, with its dumb, insistent stretchings forth to the infinite, rebelled. It was not a matter of filial duty; it was not a matter of love; to her it was a matter of existence. She saw her ideals dimly enough at best, and she would burst every cord of affection and convention rather than allow them to be submerged in the grey, surrounding murk of materialism.
Perhaps it was custom and the subtle pullings of association that drew her feet down the path across the bench to the edge of the stream that gurgled gently in the still night. She stood on the gravel by the water's edge, packed firm by the wagon-wheels of twenty-five years, and watched her image as it swayed gently in the smoothly running current. There was no moon, but the stars shone down in their midnight brilliance, and the water lay white and glistening against the black vagueness of the bushy banks. She stooped and let it fondle her fingers. It was warm and smooth…But it was shallow at the ford…Farther up it was quite deep… The stars blinked a strange challenge from the sky, as though to say, "Here is the tree of knowledge, if you dare to drink thereof."