Nor for David RoBardses, either, it seemed; for every body said that Keith’s son, Ward, was just like his grandfather. But only in looks, for Ward was already an engineer in his father’s office and even more zealous to build inland seas upon other people’s lands for the sake of the infinite New York he loved.
Ward fought his grandfather, called him an old fogy, a poor Canute who wanted to check the world’s greatest city; and in his very ardor resembled RoBards more than either realized.
He resembled him, too, in his response to the fascination of this new Patty. They were cousins, and in RoBards’ youth that had implied a love-affair. But nowadays such alliances were looked upon as perilous and scandalous.
So Ward gave Patty merely the glance of admiration a temperate man casts upon a jeweler’s window and resumed his efforts to convert his grandfather to the justice of making Westchester a mere cistern for New York.
The young man knew nothing of the meaning of the land to RoBards; he knew nothing of the secrets the house retained like a strong vault. He had the imperial eye of youth, a hawk’s look to far horizons.
He found old David querulous and old David found him sacrilegious; so they fought a civil war as uncivilly over the enslaving of the Westchester waters as North and South over the enslaving of the black nations stolen out of Africa.
Keith began to incline to his father’s side, for he shared with him the love of the natal soil. Then Ward turned on Keith with equal impatience, denouncing him as a “back number.”
This brought about another alliance between Keith and his father, and they solemnly pledged themselves to save Tuliptree from New York.
CHAPTER LIII
When the new lake of Kensico was linked to the Williamsbridge reservoir, Keith and Ward visited the farm.