Stephen felt that it might have been to their advantage had Marian sought to conciliate Mrs. Gibbs, since he did not know how Gibbs himself might be affected; but Gibbs was affected not at all; he commented upon their mutual hostility with characteristic candour.
“God bless 'em! The ladies can't help it, Landray, and it might be worse if they were intimate. Now, my Julia can't carry to Marian any little thing I chance to let drop about you, and Marian can't take up any slighting criticism you may make of me. I don't know but that we have a good deal to be thankful for; anyhow—God bless 'em, let 'em fight it out! It won't upset our friendship. I knew from the first that we were cut out for a business connection; you're long-headed and conservative; I own I'm something of an idealist—my imagination runs away with me. You're the steady hand, and by the time we've talked a scheme over we get together on a pretty sane conclusion.”
To Stephen this was a flattering opinion that he hoped the general might never have cause to reconsider.
Apart from his anxiety concerning Marian, Stephen was on the whole, happy and well content in Grant City. But Marian grew no better; indeed as the summer advanced, he sometimes fancied he noted a change for the worse, though Arling, still the only doctor in the place, pooh-poohed this fear of his.
“Yes, but why don't she get better?” Stephen would demand.
“She will, Landray; give her time. I'm free to say it ain't just a usual case, but there's no organic trouble, she ought to be a well woman.” And he would scuttle off in the direction of Mr. Youtsey's bar, where he could always be found when wanted.
And all this while Grant City seemed to grow and prosper. The huddle of houses increased by the roadside; there were side streets sparsely built upon it is true, but there was the beginning of a perceptible movement in this direction. The place was taking on the semblance of a town.
The stage carried a constantly increasing traffic; the tri-weekly gave place to a daily service; next there was both a midmorning and afternoon stage, but even this failed to entirely meet local needs, for as Mr. Youtsey said, the town was throwing a fifty-inch chest.
There was talk of issuing bonds for what Gibbs called municipal improvements; the town-site speculators clamoured for graded streets and gas, and the general, in the Epoch, demanded a speedy settlement of the vexing question of the county seat. More than this he announced that he would personally make it his business to see that they secured the county seat; and he took himself together with the logic of the situation to the capital there to lobby for the measure; and all this while the wilderness of pegs grew out upon the prairie.
Winter came again and brought a lull to the trafficking; but early in the spring a corps of railroad engineers pitched their camp on the outskirts of the town, and more additions were plotted and more pegs driven to keep pace with the impetus given by this most recent development.