Part 28 (1/2)

The remark was evidently overheard, as perhaps Kinnaird intended. One of the others laughed.

”Ralph Weston was never punctual in his life,” he said.

”Considering everything,” observed one of the women standing near Ida, ”it is rather curious that Weston should have promised to come at all.

It must be a trifle embarra.s.sing to dine at one's own place as another man's guest.”

”Oh,” said the man beside her, ”Weston would go anywhere for a good dinner and a good gla.s.s of wine.”

Ida, as it happened, had not heard what guests Mrs. Kinnaird had expected, and she started at the name. It was a moment or two later when she turned to her companion.

”This house belongs to the man they seem to be waiting for?” she asked.

Ainslie nodded.

”Yes,” he said, ”I suppose it does.”

”Then why doesn't he live in it?”

”It takes a good deal to keep up a place of this kind, and, until Major Kinnaird came, it's some time since anybody seriously attempted it.”

”Ah!” said Ida. ”Mr. Weston's means are insufficient?”

”It's a tolerably open secret. There are a good many people similarly situated. A small and badly-kept estate is not a lucrative possession.”

”Then why don't they keep it up efficiently?”

”Now,” said Ainslie, ”you're getting at the root of the matter. In my opinion it's largely a question of character. In fact, after the glimpses I've had of the wheat-growers in Dakota, Minnesota, and western Canada, it seems to me that if our people were content to live and work at home as they do out yonder they would acquire at least a moderate prosperity. Still, I'm rather afraid that wouldn't appeal to some of them. As it is, their wants are increasing, and the means of gratifying them steadily going down.”

”All this applies to Mr. Weston in particular?”

”I don't think it would be a breach of confidence if I admitted that it does. Perhaps, however, I'm a little prejudiced. Weston doesn't like me. He blames me for encouraging his son in what he calls his 'iconoclastic' notions.”

Ida, who was becoming interested, smiled.

”After all,” she said, ”the comparison isn't very unfavorable to the son. I believe the original iconoclasts were the image-breakers in Byzantium.”

”Were they? I didn't know it,” said Ainslie. ”It's a moral certainty that Weston didn't, either. In fact, I've no doubt he fancies that Darwin and Bradlaugh, and he'd certainly include Cobden, invented them. Anyway, the lad wasn't very much of an iconoclast. He believed in his images, which were not the same as those his father wors.h.i.+ped; and all he wanted was to see them work. I think it hurt him when they didn't, or, at least, when they didn't appear to.”

”Ah,” said Ida, ”that's rather too involved for me.”

”Well,” returned her companion, ”we'll leave Weston out. I'm not sure about what he believes in, and it's probable that, he doesn't know himself, except that it's everything as it used to be. His wife was High Church, with altruistic notions, and it's no secret that she made things rather uncomfortable for her husband; but when she took the lad in hand she succeeded perhaps too well. You see, he wanted to apply her principles; and altruism leads to trouble when its possessor comes across formulas that don't stand for anything.”

Just then there was a rattle of wheels outside, and a minute or two later a little full-fleshed man, with a heavy face, in conventional dress, entered the hall. He greeted those who stood about, when he had shaken hands with Kinnaird.

”Sorry I'm a little behind,” he apologized. ”Had to post over. I told Walters at the George to keep me the black mare. Instead, he let that waterworks chief navvy fellow have her. The horse he gave me would hardly face Scarside Rise.”

One or two of the guests smiled, for the navvy in question was a rather famous engineer who had had a difference of opinion with Weston over certain gravel he desired to quarry on the Scarthwaite estate.

Then Mrs. Kinnaird stepped forward, and they went in to dinner.

It was not yet dark outside, but the table was lighted; and Ida, who sat not far from Weston, watched him closely. She had at first been startled by the likeness between him and the man she had met in Canada, but she was now conscious of an increasing dissimilarity.

There was a suggestion of grossness in the face of Major Kinnaird's guest, which had certainly not been a characteristic of Weston the packer. The older man's expression was petulant and arrogant; that of the one who had served her as camp attendant had been, as a rule, good-humoredly whimsical. Nor did she like the half-contemptuous inattention that Weston displayed when one or two of the others addressed him. In several cases he merely looked up and went on with his dinner as though it were too much trouble to answer. Ida felt reasonably sure that his manners would not have been tolerated in most of the primitive logging camps of western Canada. It became evident, however, that there were topics in which he took some interest, when a man who sat near turned to him.