The Long Portage Part 22

"I don't." Bella looked up sharply. "What has that to do with it?"

Lisle thought it had a bearing on the matter, as the lad would have seen less of Batley without Gladwyne's connivance.

"Well," he countered, "what would you like me to do?"

"It's difficult to answer. He's obstinate and resents advice. You might, however, talk to him when you have a chance; he's beginning to have a respect for your opinions."

"That's gratifying," Lisle commented dryly. "He was inclined to patronize me at first."

She spread out her hands.

"You're too big to mind it! Tell him anything you can about disastrous mining ventures; but don't begin as if you meant to warn him--lead up to the subject casually."

"I'm afraid I'm not very tactful," Lisle confessed. "He'll see what I'm after."

"It's not very likely. Talk as if you considered him a man of experience.

It's fortunate that you can be of help in this case, because I think some Canadian mining shares are to be the latest deal. From what Jim said it looks as if Batley was to give him some information about them on Wednesday, when Gladwyne and he are expected at Marple's. Can't you come?

I understand you have been asked."

"Yes," promised Lisle. "If I have an opportunity, I'll see what can be done."

Bella rose and smiled at him.

"We'll go back; I'm comforted already. You're not profuse, but one feels that you will keep a promise."

They walked across the lawn, Bella now conversing in an animated strain about unimportant matters, though it did not occur to Lisle that this was for the benefit of the lookers-on. On approaching the tea-table, she adroitly secured possession of a chair which another lady who stood higher in her hostess's esteem was making for, and sitting down chatted cheerfully with Mrs. Gladwyne. Lisle was conscious of some amus.e.m.e.nt as he watched her. She was clever and her courage appealed to him; but presently he saw Millicent and strolled toward where she was standing.

She spoke to him, but he thought she was not quite so gracious as she had been before he went away.

CHAPTER XIV

LISLE COMES TO THE RESCUE

A few days after his interview with Bella, Lisle overtook Millicent as she was walking up a wooded dale. She looked around with a smile when he joined her and they fell into friendly talk. There were points on which they differed, but a sense of mutual appreciation was steadily growing stronger between them. Presently Lisle happened to mention the Marples, and Millicent glanced at him thoughtfully. She knew that he met Bella at their house.

"You have seen a good deal of these people, one way or another," she remarked.

"These people? Aren't you a little prejudiced against them?"

"I suppose I am," Millicent confessed.

"Then won't you give me the reason? Your point of view isn't always clear to an outsider."

"I'll try to be lucid. I don't so much object to Marple as I do to what he stands for; I mean to modern tendency."

"That's as involved as ever."

The girl showed a little good-humored impatience. She did not care to supply the explanation--it was against her instincts--and she was inclined to wonder why she should do so merely because the man had asked for it.

"Well," she said, "the feudal system isn't dead, and I believe that what is best in it need never disappear altogether. Of course, it had its drawbacks, but I think it was better than the commercialism that is replacing it. It recognized obligations on both sides, and there is a danger of forgetting them; the new people often fail to realize them at all. Marple--I'm using him as an example--bought the land for what he could get out of it."

"About three per cent., he told me. It isn't a great inducement."

Millicent made a half-disdainful gesture.

"He gets a great deal more--sport, a status, friends and standing, and a means of suitably entertaining them. That, I suppose, is one reason why the return in money from purely agricultural land is so small."

"Then is it wrong for a business man to buy these things, if he can pay for them?"

"Oh, no! But he must take up the duties attached to his purchase. When you buy land, human lives go with it. They're still largely in the landlord's hands. Of course, we have legislation which has curtailed the land-owner's former powers, but it's a soulless, mechanical thing that can never really take the place of direct personal interest."

She stopped and glanced back down the winding dale. Here and there smooth pastures climbed the slopes that shut it in, but over part of them ranged mighty oaks, still almost green. Beyond these, beeches tinted with brown and crimson glowed against the dusky foliage of spruces and silver-firs.

"One needs wisdom, love of the soil and all that lives on it, and perhaps patience most of all," she resumed. "These woods are an example. They are not natural like your forests--every tree has been carefully planted and as it grew the young sheltering wood about it carefully thinned out. Then as the trunks gained in size it was necessary to choose with care and cut. With the oaks it's a work of generations, planting for one's great-grandchildren, and the point that is suggested most clearly is the continuity of interest that should exist between the men who use the spade and ax and the men who own and plan. It is not a little thing that the third and fourth generations should complete the task, when a mutual toleration and dependence is handed down."

Lisle was conscious of a curious stirring of his feelings as he listened to her. She was tall and finely proportioned, endowed with a calm and gracious dignity which was nevertheless, he thought, in keeping with a sanguine and virile nature. This girl was one of the fairest and most precious products of the soil she loved.

"It's a pity in many ways that the Gladwyne property didn't come to you,"

he observed.

Her expression changed and he spread out one hand deprecatingly.

"That's another blunder of mine. I haven't acquired your people's unfailing caution yet, but I only meant--"

"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't tell me what you did mean."

Lisle nodded. He felt that he had deserved the rebuke, as the truth of his a.s.sertion could not be admitted without disparaging Gladwyne. She would allow nothing to the latter's discredit to be said by a stranger, but it was unpleasant to think that she regarded him as one. He changed the subject.

"You mentioned that landlord and laborer had a joint interest in the soil, and that's undoubtedly right," he said. "The point where trouble arises is, of course, over the division of the yield. The former's share is obvious, but nowadays plowman and forester want more than their fathers seem to have been satisfied with. I don't think you can blame them--in Canada they get more."

"I'll give you an instance to show why one can't treat them very liberally. When my brother got possession he spent a great deal of money--it was left him by his mother and didn't come out of the land--in draining, improvements, and rebuilding homesteads and cottages, besides freely giving his time and care. For a number of years he got no return at all, and part of the expenditure will always be unproductive. It isn't a solitary case."

They went on together through the shadowy, crimson-tinted dale until Millicent stopped at the gate of a field-road.

"I am going to one of the cottages yonder," she explained. "I expect Nasmyth on Wednesday evening. Are you coming with him?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to Marple's. You see, I promised."

"Promised Marple?"

He was learning to understand her, for though she showed no marked sign of displeasure he knew that she was not gratified.

"No," he answered; "Miss Crestwick."

She did not speak, but there was something in her manner that hinted at disdainful amus.e.m.e.nt.