soap, pretty neatly," and gave the man
before him a look of friendly understanding. He was a little startled,
for an instant, by the expression in the other's bright eyes, which he
found fixed on him with an intentness almost disconcerting. "Does he
think I'm trying to put something over on him?" he asked himself with a
passing astonishment, "or is he trying to put something over on me?"
Then he remembered that everyone had spoken of Marsh's eyes as peculiar;
it was probably just his habit. "He can look right through me and out at
the other side, for all _I_ care!" he thought indifferently, meeting the
other's gaze with a faintly humorous sense of something absurd.

Marise had come back now, and was saying, "You really must get started,
Neale, the men will be quitting work soon."

"Yes, yes, this minute," he told her, and led the way with Mr. Welles,
leaving Marise and Mr. Bayweather to be showman for Mr. Marsh. He now
remembered that he had not heard the older man say a single word as yet,
and surmised that he probably never said much when the fluent Mr. Marsh
was with him. He wondered a little, as they made their way to the
saw-mill, what Marise saw in either of them to interest her so much. Oh
well, they were a change, of course, from Ashley and Crittenden's
people, and different from the Eugenia Mills bunch, in New York, too.

He stood now, beside Mr. Welles, in the saw-mill, the ringing high
crescendo scream of the saws filling the air. Marise stood at the other
end talking animatedly to the two she had with her. Marise was a wonder
on conversation anyhow. What could she find to say, now, for instance?
What in the world was there to say to an ex-office manager of a big
electrical company about a wood-working business?

His eyes were caught by what one of the men was doing and he yelled at
him sharply, "Look out there, Harry! Stop that! What do I have a guard
rail there for, anyhow?"

"What was the matter?" asked Mr. Welles, startled.

"Oh, nothing much. One of the men dodging under a safety device to save
him a couple of steps. They get so reckless about those saws. You have
to look out for them like a bunch of bad children."

Mr. Welles looked at him earnestly. "Are you . . . have you . . . Mr.
Bayweather has told us so much about all you do for the men . . . how they
are all devoted to you."

Neale looked and felt annoyed. Bayweather and his palaver! "I don't do
anything for them, except give them as good