not
approve without reserve. I have counted you as my friend. If I have
seemed to be a traitor to Elijah, it is only that I might be true to
you. I would not say to any one else what I have said to you."

Helen's resentment died away before Winston's words.

"You haven't answered my first question yet. You seem able, if you only
will."

"In a way, yes. Elijah Berl and I are partners."

"Partners!" Helen did not try to conceal her surprise.

"Yes. The agreement was signed today. Elijah was more than generous in
his terms."

"And yet you could say what you did of him!"

"Yes. I gave him fair warning. I didn't tell him in so many words that I
distrusted him; I simply said that our different views of things might
in the future bring us into conflict. If he couldn't understand that, it
was useless to say more."

"And yet, distrusting him, you have tied yourself to him. It doesn't
seem quite harmonious to me and not a bit like you."

"It isn't harmonious. Nothing is, for that matter, unless you make it
so."

"Then the success of the whole business depends upon your ability to
manage Elijah Berl?"

"That's about the gist of it."

"Yours must be a comfortable state of mind." There was sarcasm in the
voice.

"I am speaking as freely to you, Helen, as I do to myself. I thought our
standing would allow that."

Helen made no reply. She sat gazing absently into the street. She was in
an uncomfortable frame of mind. Twice that day she had been swept hither
and thither under influences outside herself. It was unusual for her and
it was discomposing. The Las Cruces Irrigation Company had looked so
safe as a permanent and a big paying investment, and Elijah Berl himself
had stirred her as she had never before been stirred. And now Ralph
Winston had told her in so many words that she did not know what she was
about. She resented this hotly. She resented it the more strongly,
because she recognized the injustice she was doing Ralph. It was long
before she had herself under control. At length she turned from the
street and looked at Winston.

"I had a letter from home today."

Winston responded eagerly to her changed mood.

"How are they all?"

"Just as well as ever. Mother says that father bobbed up from under that
anti-debris decision like a cork in salt water. He says he is going to
put up a dam that the debris commission can't look over in a week's
climbing. Jimmie is his ablest assistant."

"Little rascal! S