orry you
had a stupid time," he said, gravely.

"I did not mean that, and you know I didn't mean that," the girl
answered. "I wanted to hear about it from you, because you did it. I
wasn't interested so much in what had been done, as I was in the man
who had accomplished it."

Clay shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and looked across at Miss
Langham with a troubled smile.

"But that's just what I don't want," he said. "Can't you see? These
mines and other mines like them are all I have in the world. They are
my only excuse for having lived in it so long. I want to feel that I've
done something outside of myself, and when you say that you like me
personally, it's as little satisfaction to me as it must be to a woman
to be congratulated on her beauty, or on her fine voice. That is
nothing she has done herself. I should like you to value what I have
done, not what I happen to be."

Miss Langham turned her eyes to the harbor, and it was some short time
before she answered.

"You are a very difficult person to please," she said, "and most
exacting. As a rule men are satisfied to be liked for any reason. I
confess frankly, since you insist upon it, that I do not rise to the
point of appreciating your work as the others do. I suppose it is a
fault," she continued, with an air that plainly said that she
considered it, on the contrary, something of a virtue. "And if I knew
more about it technically, I might see more in it to admire. But I am
looking farther on for better things from you. The friends who help us
the most are not always those who consider us perfect, are they?" she
asked, with a kindly smile. She raised her eyes to the great ore-pier
that stretched out across the water, the one ugly blot in the scene of
natural beauty about them. "I think that is all very well," she said;
"but I certainly expect you to do more than that. I have met many
remarkable men in all parts of the world, and I know what a strong man
is, and you have one of the strongest personalities I have known. But
you can't mean that you are content to stop with this. You should be
something bigger and more wide-reaching and more lasting. Indeed, it
hurts me to see you wasting your time here over my father's interests.
You should exert that same energy on a broader map. You could make
yourself anything you chose. At home you would be your party's leader
in politics, or you could be a great general, or a great financier. I
sa