The Long Portage Part 24

"I think there can be only one opinion on that point," he declared.

Lisle's eyes gleamed with an amus.e.m.e.nt that was stronger than his indignation. That Gladwyne should expect this gravely delivered decision to have any marked effect tickled him.

"Well," he replied, "I'm ready to stand by what I said, and I'll add that if I had any shares I'd give them away to anybody who would register as their owner before the next call is made."

"I understood there wouldn't be a call for a long while," Crestwick broke in.

"Then whoever told you so must have been misinformed," Lisle rejoined.

"Are you casting any doubt upon my honor?" Batley demanded in a bellicose voice.

"I don't think so; anyway, so long as you don't rule out my suggestion.

Still, I'm willing to leave Gladwyne to decide the point. He seems to understand these delicate matters."

Marple, looking distressed and irresolute, broke in before Gladwyne had a chance to reply.

"Do you know much about mining, Lisle?"

Lisle laughed.

"I've had opportunities for learning something, as prospector, locator of alluvial claims and holder of an interest in one or two comparatively prosperous companies."

He leaned forward and touched Crestwick's shoulder.

"Come along, Jim, and I'll give you one or two particulars that should decide you."

Somewhat to his astonishment, the lad rose and rather sheepishly followed him. There was an awkward silence for a few moments after they left the room; then Marple turned to his guests.

"I can't undertake to say whether Lisle was justified or not," he began.

"I'm sorry, however, that anything of this nature should have happened in my house."

"So am I," said Gladwyne with gracious condescension. "There is, of course, one obvious remedy."

Marple raised his hands in expostulation. He liked Lisle, and Gladwyne was a distinguished guest. Batley seemed to find his confusion amusing.

"I think the only thing we can do is to let the matter drop," he suggested. "These fellows from the wilds are primitive--one can't expect too much. The correct feeling or delicacy of expression we'd look for among ourselves is hardly in their line."

Marple was mollified, and he fell in with Batley's suggestion that they should try a game.

In the meanwhile, Crestwick looked around at his companion as they went down the corridor.

"I believe I owe you some thanks," he admitted. "I like the way you headed off Batley--I think he meant to turn savage at first--and I wouldn't have been willing to draw in Gladwyne, as you did. He has a way of crus.h.i.+ng you with a look."

"It's merely a sign that you deserve it," Lisle laughed. "You take too many things for granted in this country. Test another man's a.s.sumption of superiority before you agree with it, and you'll sometimes be astonished to find out what it's really founded on. And now we'd better join those people who're singing."

CHAPTER XV

BELLA'S DEFEAT

The afternoon was calm and hazy, and Lisle lounged with great content in a basket-chair on Millicent's lawn. His hostess sat near by, looking listless, a somewhat unusual thing for her, and Miss Hume, her elderly companion, genial in spite of her precise formality, was industriously embroidering something not far away. There was not a breath of wind astir; a soft gray sky streaked with long bars of stronger color hung motionless over the wide prospect. Wood and moorland ridge and distant hill had faded to dimness of contour and quiet neutral tones. Indeed, the whole scene seemed steeped in a profound tranquillity, intensified only by the murmur of the river.

Lisle enjoyed it all, though he was conscious that Millicent's presence added to its charm. He had grown to feel restful and curiously at ease in her company. She was, he thought, so essentially natural; one felt at home with her.

"I haven't often seen you with the unoccupied appearance you have just now," he remarked at length.

"I have sent the book off, and after being at work on it so long, I feel disinclined to do anything else," she said. "I've just heard from the publishers; they don't seem enthusiastic. After all, one couldn't expect that--the style of the thing is rather out of the usual course."

Lisle looked angry and she was pleased with his indignation on her behalf.

"They show precious little sense!" he declared; "but you're right. It's one of your English customs to go on from precedent to precedent until you get an unmodifiable standard, when you slavishly conform to it. Now your book's neither a cla.s.sification nor a catalogue--it's something far bigger. Never mind what the experts and scientists say; wait until the people who love the wild things and want their story made real get it into their hands!"

His confidence was gratifying, but she changed the subject.

"You Canadians haven't much respect for precedent?"

"No; we try to meet the varying need by constantly changing means.

They're often crude, but they're successful, as a rule."

"It's a system that must have a wide effect," she responded, to lead him on. She liked to hear him talk.

"It has. You can see it in the difference between your country and mine.

This land's smooth and well trimmed; everything in it has grown up little by little; its mellow ripeness is its charm. Ours is grand or rugged or desolate, but it's never merely pretty. The same applies to our people; they're bubbling over with raw, optimistic vigor, their corners are not rubbed off. Some of them would jar on overcivilized people, but not, I think, on any one with understanding." He spread out his hands. "You have an example; I'm spouting at large again."

"Go on," she begged; "I'm interested. But have you ever thought that instead of being younger than we are you're really older. I mean that you have gone back a long way; begun again at an earlier stage, instead of going ahead?"

"Now you get at the bottom of things!" he exclaimed. "That's always been an idea of mine. The people of the newer countries, perhaps more particularly those to whom I belong, are brought back to the grapple with elemental conditions. We're on the bed-rock of nature."

"Are you too modest to go any further?"

He showed faint signs of confusion and she laughed. "No doubt, the situation makes for pristine vigor, and we are drifting into artificiality," she suggested. "Perhaps you, the toilers, the subduers of the wilderness, are to serve as an anchor for the supercivilized generations to hold on by." She paused and quoted softly: "'Pioneers; O pioneers!'"

"What can I say to that?" he asked with half-amused embarra.s.sment. "We're pretty egotistical, but one can't go back on Whitman."

"No," she laughed mischievously; "I think you're loyal; and there are situations from which it's difficult to extricate oneself. Didn't you find it so, for example, when you declined to come here with Nasmyth, because Miss Crestwick had pressed you to go to Marple's?"

He could think of no neat reply to this and the obvious fact pleased her, for she guessed that he would rather have spent the evening with her.

This was true, for now, sitting in the quiet garden in her company, he looked back on the entertainment with something like disgust. Marple's male friends were, for the most part, characterized by a certain grossness and sensuality; in their amus.e.m.e.nts at games of chance one or two had displayed an open avarice. These things jarred on the man who had toiled among the rocks and woods, where he had practised a stringent self-denial.

"I heard that you figured in a striking little scene," Millicent went on.

"I couldn't help it." Lisle appeared annoyed. "That man Batley irritated me; though, after all, I don't blame him the most."

This was a slip.