behind
him, "I've fought on the mud floor of a Mexican shack, with a naked
knife in my hand, for my last dollar. I was as low and as desperate as
that. And now--" Clay lifted his head and smiled. "Now," he said, in
a lower voice and addressing Miss Langham with a return of his usual
grave politeness, "I am able to sit beside you and talk to you. I have
risen to that. I am quite content."

He paused and looked at Miss Langham uncertainly for a few moments as
though in doubt as to whether she would understand him if he continued.

"And though it means nothing to you," he said, "and though as you say I
am here as your father's employee, there are other places, perhaps,
where I am better known. In Edinburgh or Berlin or Paris, if you were
to ask the people of my own profession, they could tell you something
of me. If I wished it, I could drop this active work tomorrow and
continue as an adviser, as an expert, but I like the active part
better. I like doing things myself. I don't say, 'I am a salaried
servant of Mr. Langham's;' I put it differently. I say, 'There are
five mountains of iron. You are to take them up and transport them from
South America to North America, where they will be turned into
railroads and ironclads.' That's my way of looking at it. It's better
to bind a laurel to the plough than to call yourself hard names. It
makes your work easier--almost noble. Cannot you see it that way, too?"

Before Miss Langham could answer, a deprecatory cough from one side of
the open boat-house startled them, and turning they saw MacWilliams
coming toward them. They had been so intent upon what Clay was saying
that he had approached them over the soft sand of the beach without
their knowing it. Miss Langham welcomed his arrival with evident
pleasure.

"The launch is waiting for you at the end of the pier," MacWilliams
said. Miss Langham rose and the three walked together down the length
of the wharf, MacWilliams moving briskly in advance in order to enable
them to continue the conversation he had interrupted, but they followed
close behind him, as though neither of them were desirous of such an
opportunity.

Hope and King had both come for Miss Langham, and while the latter was
helping her to a place on the cushions, and repeating his regrets that
the men were not coming also, Hope started the launch, with a brisk
ringing of bells and a whirl of the wheel and a smile over her shoulder
at the figures o