“I’ll vow, Will,” she said quietly after a moment. “I’ve had all I can put up with. I don’t know what’s got into him. But you can bet your bottom dollar I won’t stand much more of it. I know how to shift for myself,” she said, nodding her head smartly. He recognized the tone.
He almost forgot himself: “See here, Eliza,” he began, “if you were thinking of building somewhere, I”—but he recovered himself in time—“I’ll make you the best price you can get on the material,” he concluded. He thrust a slice of pear quickly into his mouth.
She pursed her mouth rapidly for some moments.
“No,” she said. “I’m not ready for that yet, Will. I’ll let you know.” The loose wood-coals crumbled on the hearth.
“I’ll let you know,” she said again. He clasped his knife and thrust it in a trousers pocket.
“Good night, Eliza,” he said. “I reckon Pett will be in to see you. I’ll tell her you’re all right.”
He went down the stairs quietly, and let himself out through the front door. As he descended the tall veranda steps, Duncan and Jannadeau came quietly down the yard from the sitting-room.
“How’s W. O.?” he asked.
“Ah, he’ll be all right now,” said Duncan cheerfully. “He’s fast asleep.”
“The sleep of the righteous?” asked Will Pentland with a wink.
The Swiss resented the implied jeer at his Titan. “It is a gread bitty,” began Jannadeau in a low guttural voice, “that Mr. Gant drinks. With his mind he could go far. When he’s sober a finer man doesn’t live.”
“When he’s sober?” said Will, winking at him in the dark. “What about when he’s asleep.”
“He’s all right the minute Helen gets hold of him,” Mr. Duncan remarked in his rich voice. “It’s wonderful what that little girl can do to him.”
“Ah, I tell you!” Jannadeau laughed with guttural pleasure. “That little girl knows her daddy in and out.”
The child sat in the big chair by the waning sitting-room fire:
