The Spoilers of the Valley Part 78

Far up the Lake, alongside which the road ran in a brown, winding thread, were little wooded and gra.s.sy promontories sitting like islands upon the water and suggesting the last peaceful reservation of all the fairies, wood-elves and brownies who might be crowded out from the cities and the busy lands now over-run and exploited by the unpoetical humans.

A little, warm hand placed itself over Phil's as he held the steering wheel and it roused him from his reverie. He gazed at Eileen's upturned face. He put his arms about her, drew her closer to him and kissed her on the lips.

She laughed--that same little, happy laugh away down in her throat, then she clapped her hands with pleasure.

"My, but I'm glad!" she cried. "My Phil is a dreamer after all."

"Didn't you know that before, girlie?"

"No! I always hoped--and fancied sometimes--but I know now and I am ever so glad about it." Her face became solemn.

"Phil,--you won't ever let money, and business, and success steal your love to dream away from you?"

"I should say not! Did you think I would?"

"Oh,--so many men lose their love for the beautiful things, for poetry, music, pictures, pretty scenery----"

"And their sweethearts," put in Phil.

"Yes,--sometimes. But more often their wives. They do not lose their love exactly, but rather they forget to use it in their over-absorption in business, and it gradually slips away from them like a child's belief in fairies and in Santa Claus."

Phil started up the car again and they bowled merrily along to the village of Oyama, the half-way rest between Vernock and Kelowna, at the division of the two lakes.

"Take Jim now," said Phil, continuing the line of thought, "I'll bet he believes in sprites, and ghosts, and Santa Claus, right to-day. He is the kind that never grows away from his boyhood."

"And why should he? His boyhood was doubtless the happiest period of his life, and he is just staying with it like a wise man."

Eileen sighed.

"Phil,--I wish Jim could get a real, nice sweetheart. Did you ever hear of him having one?"

"Never!--at least not a real one. Did you?"

"No! He doesn't seem ever to get any further with the young ladies than mere acquaintance. Yet I know lots--and nice girls, too--who would be glad to have a man like Jim."

"I guess he is just waiting on ''till the right girl comes along,' as the poet says. I hope she will prove worthy of him. His kind are so apt to get fooled at the finish. What shall we do with him when we get married, Eileen?"

Eileen blushed. "It is a hard problem, but we've just got to mother, and sister, and brother him until he gets settled."

"If he ever does!"

"If he doesn't, I am going to keep on mothering him--that's all. So it is up to you, Phil, to find him a real, nice girl."

"No, thanks! It has been a hard job finding one for myself."

"And you are quite satisfied?" she queried again, solemnly.

"Quite!"

"And you'll never grow tired of me?"

"Never! Why, dearie,--how could I?"

"Oh, I don't know! Men do, sometimes. I guess I am just foolish. But, if I don't measure up, you will promise to be lenient with me?"

"You'll always measure up with me, Eileen. It is my measuring up with you that I am afraid of."

"And if I don't just grasp things quickly;--if I can't climb the mountains of thought and progress as fast as you can,--you won't grow impatient?"

"No!"

"You'll wait for me, and help me over the boulders, and even if I wish to sit down and rest for a while, you'll sit down with me and rest also until I am ready to climb on? You won't run ahead--as so many husbands do--so far ahead that I shall not be able to catch up?"

"No, dearie, no! Your speed is just going to be my speed unless it is too much for me, and we'll both get up to the top of the hill together."

"Kiss me then, Phil,--and let us turn for home. I am happy at last,--just ever so happy."

"Eileen, I think I'd better come along and make my peace, et cetera, et cetera, with your dad," said Phil, as they neared Vernock again.

"Does he know anything of our plans?"

"No, Phil! I have told him of our good friends.h.i.+p, but I have been waiting and waiting in the hope that a chance would come for us to talk to him when he was not absorbed, body, soul and spirit, in business and politics. But the time seems to get farther and farther off than ever. I guess you had better come along now.

"And don't I wish you could advise him to give up his silly notions for acquiring land. He might listen to you, Phil. You might be able to induce him to sell part of what he has in order to bolster up what remains. If a slump of any kind comes, he will be without a prop to lean on. No man has any right to involve himself in this way, no matter how good the ultimate prospects may look."

"I can't understand it, Eileen, for it appears to be a kind of contagious disease, attacking the ablest and otherwise most business-like men in the Province. Your father is by no means alone."

"I know; Mr. Brenchfield, Mr. Arbuthnot, the Victoria and the Vancouver political gang,--they are all more or less in it the same way. I can't think what has come over them. The danger signals ahead stand out so brightly to me, although I may be wrong. I hope,--oh, I hope I am!

"They have got to think so much prosperity and progress that they have hypnotised themselves into believing that it is permanent. And they all imagine, whatever comes, that they will be able to see before the man in the street does and so be able to get out from under, leaving someone else with the load of unrealisable property."

"I am afraid, though, your dad would hardly listen to me. He would put any advice I might give him down to gratuitous impertinence and cubbish presumption."

Eileen sighed again.

"Don't you worry though, dearie! If the opportunity turns up I will speak my mind."

As they ran in at the gateway and up through the avenue of trees, they found John Royce Pederstone seated in a garden chair on the front lawn.

The old man's greeting to his daughter and to Phil was cordiality itself, for John Royce Pederstone was always a cheerful man, believing good of all whom he met, shutting his ears to all slander and quick to recognise enterprise and ability.

"Well, young man!--you've been making rapid progress since I saw you last," he remarked, by way of greeting.

"More ways than one," put in Eileen a little shyly.

Phil lost no time in stating his case in plain words to the politician. And his very plain words were what struck the responsive chords, for John Royce Pederstone was of all things a plain man. And the great pity of it all was that he had not stayed with plain blacksmithing or plain ranching.

So many men find out after the act that they have left the substance to chase the shadow.

John Royce Pederstone, however, had not yet come to the point of recognising this very great truth.