Part 14 (1/2)

”You're an indulgent critic; that drawing is my own.”

He did not appear embarra.s.sed, though she saw that he had not suspected the fact. She had already noticed that when he might, perhaps, have looked awkward he only looked serious.

”After what you have said,” she resumed, ”I'll show you the other things with greater confidence. Do you know, I thought all you Western people were grimly utilitarian?”

He sat down and considered this. The man could laugh readily, but he was also characterized by a certain gravity, which she found refres.h.i.+ng by contrast with the light glibness to which she was more accustomed.

”Well,” he reasoned, ”in my opinion, the white man's greatest superiority over all other peoples is his capacity for making useful things--even if they're only ugly sawmills or grimy locomotives. Philosophy never fed any one or lightened anybody's toil; commerce is a convenience, but the man who makes a big profit out of it is only levying a heavy toll on somebody else. It seems to me that all our actual benefits come from the constructor.”

”Have you been building sawmills?” Millicent asked mischievously.

He laughed with open good-humor. ”Oh, no; that's why I'm free to talk. I happened to find a lode with some gold in it, and gold is only a handy means of exchanging things. I'll own that I was probably doing more useful work when I stood up to my waist in ice-water, fitting sharp stones into a pulp-mill dam.”

”Perhaps you're right,” Millicent agreed, ”but it sounds severe. What of the people who never do anything directly useful at all?”

”There are a few who, by just going up and down in it, keep the world sweet and clean. Some of the rest could very well be spared.”

”Then you believe that everybody must practically justify his existence?”

”If he fails to do so with us, his existence generally ceases. The wilderness where I found the gold is full of the bones of the unfit.”

Millicent spread out some drawings. Most were in color, in some cases several of the same object, done with patient care, and she was strangely pleased when she saw the quick appreciation in his eyes.

”An otter; it's alive,” he remarked. ”You've shown it working through a shallow, looking much less like an animal than a fish--that's right.”

”I made half a dozen sketches, and I'm not satisfied yet.”

”Thorough,” he commented. ”You get there, if you have to hammer the heart out of whatever you're up against.”

”It's my brother's book,” she answered. ”I'm finis.h.i.+ng it for him. He did other things--most of them useful, indirectly. I've only this--and I'd like my part to be good.”

He nodded sympathetically, looking troubled.

”I can understand,” he said. ”I had a partner--I owe him more than I could ever have repaid, and he left a troublesome piece of work to me. It will have to be put through. But let me see some more; they're great.”

She showed him a red jay; a tiny gold-crest perched on a thorn branch; a kingfisher gleaming with turquoise hues, poised ready for a dive upon a froth-lapped stone. He was no cultured critic, but he knew the ways of the wild creatures and saw that she had talent, for her representations of them were instinct with life.

They were interrupted by a scratching at the door and when she opened it a white setter hobbled awkwardly in and curled itself at her feet.

”He's rather a big dog for the house, but I can't keep him away from me,”

she explained. ”As you see, he has lost a foot, in a trap, and he was marked for destruction when I asked for him. Sometimes I think he knows that I saved his life.”

The dog looked up and raising a paw sc.r.a.ped at her hand, until she opened it, when he thrust his chin into her palm. It was a trivial incident, but it somehow stirred the man.

”Now I know where you got power to draw these lesser brethren,” he said.

”Study alone would never have given it to you.”

She let this pa.s.s. He was almost embarra.s.sing in his directness, though she acquitted him of any crude intention of flattering her.

”I promised to let you read my brother's diary,” she reminded him. ”If you will wait a few moments, I'll get it.”