d think our place a public park and we the
keepers."

In all this banter Virginia was given the English viewpoint as to Western
manners and conditions. She perceived that the Enderbys, notwithstanding
their heavy-set prejudices, were persons of discernment and right feeling.
It certainly was impertinent of the neighbors to ride through the grounds
as if they were public, and Mrs. Enderby was justified in resenting it.

Ross turned to her. "Enderby is the kind of Englishman who wants to adapt
himself to new conditions, but can't."

"You don't seem like an Englishman at all."

"Well, I was caught young, and, besides, I'm really Irish--on my father's
side."

"Oh, that's different!" she exclaimed, as though that somehow brought him
nearer to her own people.

"It is, isn't it?" he laughingly agreed. "But Enderby--I suppose his
pedigree goes back to Cedric and his swineherds. You can't change that
kind."

"I hadn't the least thought of seeing you here. How did you happen to
come?"

"Redfield telephoned me at the mill, and I came at once. I haven't been
here since May, and I just thought I'd take a half a day off. Luckily, my
understudy was with me. I left him 'on the job.'"

He did not tell her that she was the principal reason for this sudden
descent upon Elk Lodge, and no one but Redfield knew the killing ride he
had taken in order to be in at the beginning of the dinner. The girl's
face and voice, especially her voice, had been with him night and day as
he went about his solitary duties. Her life problem had come to fill his
mind to a disturbing degree, and he was eager to know more of her and of
her struggle against the vice and vulgarity of the Forks.

"How is your mother?" he asked, a few minutes later.

"Not at all well. Mr. Redfield is to take the doctor back with us
to-morrow." The ecstasy died out of her face, and the flexible lips
drooped with troubled musing. "I am afraid she suffers more than she will
admit."

"She needs a rest and change. She should get away from her seat at that
cash-register, and return to the open air. A touch of camp-life would help
her. She sticks too close to her work."

"I know she does, but she won't let me relieve her, even for an hour. It
isn't because she doesn't trust me; she says it's because she doesn't want
me sitting there--so--publicly. She doesn't oppose my housekeeping any
more--"

"You certainly have made the old hotel into a place of miraculous
neatness."