s temper. Seemingly, nothing could penetrate
his armor of good nature, nor make him comprehend that she really meant
her bitter words. Slow of movement and speech, his mind was alert
enough, and Nora had to admit to herself, although she always openly
denied it, that he had humor. To lose one's own temper in a wordy
passage at arms and find one's opponent still smiling and serene is not
a soothing experience.

Often, in the darkness of the night after she had gone to bed, she could
feel her cheek burn at the recollection that this 'ignorant clod,' as
she contemptuously called him to herself, had the power to make her feel
a weak, undisciplined child by merely never losing his self-control.

There would have been consolation in the thought that in his stupidity
he did not understand how she despised him, how infinitely beneath her
she considered him, had it not been darkened by the suspicion that he
understood perfectly well _and didn't care_.

How dared he, how dared he!

She had complained of his familiar manner to her brother a day or two
after her arrival. But he had given her neither support nor consolation.

"My dear Nora," he said, "we are not back in England. The sooner you
forget all the old notions of class and class distinctions, the happier
you'll be. They won't go here. As long as a man's straight, honest and a
worker--and Frank's all three--it doesn't make any odds whether he's
working for himself or for someone else. We're all on the same footing.
It is only due to the fact that I've had two good years in succession
that I'm not somebody's 'hired man' myself."

"Don't, Eddie, don't; you don't realize how you hurt me."

"My dear girl, I'm sorry; but I'm in dead earnest."

"You, a hired man? Oh, I can't believe it."

"It's true, nevertheless. Plenty of better fellows than I have had to do
it. When you're starting in, unless you have a good deal bigger capital
than I had, you only need to be hailed out, frosted out, or weeded out a
couple of years in succession to use up your little stake, and then
where are you?"

"What do you mean by 'weeded out'?"

He was just about to explain when a halloo from the stables cut him
short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute;
we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it,
she'll explain it to you."

But Gertie had been deeply preoccupied with some domestic problem and
Nora had forborne to question her. She had inte