“We have threshed all that out, time and again, down to the final spear of straw, Elizabeth and I,” Tregarvon explained carelessly. “At first we did try to galvanize ourselves into some of the sentimental throes, but it was such a ridiculous little comedy that Elizabeth herself called it off. We are sufficiently fond of each other; Uncle Byrd’s will is mandatory, and we shall be able to live together without quarrelling. What more could you ask?” “I don’t know,” said Carfax thoughtfully. “Your summary fits in pretty accurately with the way of the world. Yet, if I had to change places with either of you, I fancy I should ask a good bit more.” “If you were Elizabeth Wardwell, you wouldn’t ask any more; and if you were Vance Tregarvon, you couldn’t. So there you are.” Again there was a smoke-beclouded silence, and into the thick of it Carfax launched a pointed query: “Have you told Elizabeth anything at all about the girls’ school on the mountain--Highmount?” “Oh, sure; and about the bewitching Miss Birrell, as well. I always tell Elizabeth everything; I haven’t sense enough not to.” “And her comment?” asked the golden one half-absently. “On Miss Birrell, you mean? To tell the brazen truth, I expected a wigging; not anything like a jealous outbreak, you understand--Elizabeth is miles above that--but some nicely worded, cool-lipped advice about not pitching the conventions out at the window just because I happen to be living a thousand miles from real civilization--Philadelphia civilization.” “And you didn’t get it?” “No, indeed. She didn’t say a word about Miss Birrell, specifically, but she wrote me a good cousinly letter in which she told me how glad she was that I needn’t deny myself all of the social mitigations, and urging me not to let my job on the Ocoee make a one-sided hermit of me. That letter came nearer to making me sentimental over her than anything else she has ever said or done. It did, for a fact.” Carfax did not vote Aye or No on this. He appeared content to let the sentimental matter rest, since he went back to the business difficulties. “About this last-resort tussle of yours, Vance, I see now why it is mighty necessary for you to make it win, and I wish you had a little better assurance that you are not up against a brace game; that Old Pisgah hasn’t stacked the cards on you.” “I can’t very well afford to think of that possibility,” said Tregarvon grimly. “No, I suppose you can’t. Yet if the genially cynical attitude of the native bystander counts for anything----” “The loafers over at Tait’s, you mean? They’d scoff at anything that smelled of good, honest work.”