'd have been
glad to exchange places with Weatherbee. I'd have counted it a privilege
to work, even as he did, for her; I could have suffered privation, the
worst kind, wrung success out of failure, for the hope of her."

"See here, Foster,"--Tisdale laid his hands on the younger man's
shoulders, shaking him slowly,--"you must stop this." His hold relaxed; he
stepped back, and his voice vibrated softly through the room. "How could
you have said it, knowing David Weatherbee as you did? No matter what kind
of a woman she is, you should have remembered she was his wife and
respected her for his sake."

"Respect? I do respect her. She's the kind of woman a man sets on a
pedestal to worship and glorify. You don't understand it, Hollis; you
don't know her, and I can't explain; but just her presence is an appeal,
an inspiration to all that's worth anything in me."

Tisdale's hands sought his pockets; his head dropped forward a little and
he stood regarding Foster with an upward look from under frowning brows.

"You don't know her," Foster repeated. "She's different--finer than other
women. And she has been gently bred. Generations of the best blood is
bottled like old wine in her crystal body." He paused, his face
brightening at the fancy. "You can always see the spirit sparkling
through."

"I remember about that blue blood," Tisdale said tersely. "Weatherbee told
me how it could be traced back through a Spanish mother to some
buccaneering adventurer, Don Silva de y somebody, who made his
headquarters in Mexico. And that means a trace of Mexican in the race, or
at least Aztec."

Foster colored. "The son of that Don Silva came north and settled in
California. He brought his peons with him and made a great rancheria. At
the time of the Mexican War, his herds and flocks covered immense ranges.
Hundreds of these cattle must have supplied the United States commissary;
the rest were scattered, and in the end there was little left of the
estate; just a few hundred acres and a battered hacienda. But Mrs.
Weatherbee's father was English; the younger son of an old and knighted
family."

"I know," answered Tisdale dryly. "Here in the northwest we call such sons
remittance men. They are paid generous allowances, sometimes, to come to
America and stay."

"That's unfair," Foster flamed. "You have no right to say it. He came to
California when he was just a young fellow to invest a small inheritance.
He doubled it twice in a few ye