to your father,
but he seemed impervious." He hesitated for a moment. "No doubt it's a
delicate subject, but it's a little difficult quietly to contemplate
the fact that, while those men talk politics, you--"

"I do their work?" suggested Laura with a lifting of her arched
eyebrows. "After all, isn't that or something like it what generally
happens when men turn their backs upon their task?"

Nasmyth flushed. "I admit that I was trying to break away from mine,
but it seems you have undertaken to head me off and drive me back to
it again."

"That was more or less what I wished," said Laura quietly.

"Well," Nasmyth replied, "as I think you're a little hard on me, I'll
try to put my views before you. To begin with, the dam is done for."

"You are quite sure? You built it so far once. Is it altogether out of
the question for you to do as much again?"

Nasmyth felt his face grow hot. She was looking at him with quiet
eyes, which had, however, the faintest suggestion of disdain in them.

"The question is why I should want to do it," he said.

"Ah!" rejoined Laura, "you have no aspirations at all? Still, I'm not
quite sure that is exactly what I mean--in fact, I think I mean
considerably more. You are quite content to throw away your
birthright, and relinquish all claim to the station you were born
in?"

The man smiled somewhat bitterly. "I think you understand that it's a
custom of this country not to demand from any man an account of what
he may have done before he came out to it. In my particular case it
was, however, nothing very discreditable, and I once had my
aspirations, or, as you prefer to consider it, I recognized my
obligations. Then the blow fell unexpectedly, and I came out here and
became a hired man--a wandering chopper. After all, one learns to be
content rather easily, which is in several ways fortunate. Then you
instilled fresh aspirations--it's the right word in this case--into
me, and I made another attempt, only to be hurled back again. There
doesn't seem to be much use in attempting the impossible."

"Then a thing is to be considered impossible after one fails twice?
There are men who fail--and go on again--all their lives long."

"I'm afraid," Nasmyth declared in a dull tone, "I am not that kind of
man. After all, to be flung down from the station you were born
to--I'm using your own words--and turned suddenly adrift to labour
with one's hands takes a good deal of the courage out of one.