I was silent. The old boyish dislike of Rufus Blight had never died. I could think of him only as a sleek, vulgar man who by the force of his money had taken Penelope from me. His money had raised her far above my reach, and even the cloud which shadowed this day which might have been my brightest seemed to have had its birth in vapors of his gold-giving furnaces. That I had forgotten Penelope and entangled myself in the cords of a foolish sentimentality I charged to him, and Penelope, seeing how I walked, silent, with eyes grimly set ahead, divined that I still nourished the aversion to which in my childish petulance I had given vent so long ago. "You are still prejudiced against poor Uncle Rufus, I see," she said, smiling. "I remember how badly you treated him that day when he came to take me away." "Yes, I never have forgiven him," I snapped out. "He may have reason, and justice, and saintliness on his side, yet I never can forgive him." "Oh, yes, you can," said Penelope with an indulgent laugh. "You will when you come to know him as I do. You must, for my sake." "Perhaps, for your sake," said I, relenting a little. "I knew you would for my sake, David," said Penelope. "Why, I owe everything I have in the world to him. Since he has retired, sold his works to a trust, I think they call it, his whole life seems to be to look after me. Pittsburgh isn't much of a place for a man who has no business; so we thought we should try New York for a while, and we bought the house last spring and spent the summer in Bar Harbor. Now we are just settling down." I was hardly listening as she spoke, for my mind was occupied by Rufus Blight. He had reason and justice on his side. That much I surrendered to him, but I clung obstinately to my dislike. I thought of the Professor flying over the clearing to the hiding of the mountains; I remembered him in the college hall, with his bitter words pointing the way from which his own weakness held him back, the man whose imagination ranged so far while his hands were idle. I pictured his brother grown fat and happy at the trough of gold at which he fed, and even had I not felt a personal feud with Rufus Blight, my sympathy for the under-dog must have aroused my antipathy. But I hated him for my own sake. For every foolish step that I had taken since that day when he had carried Penelope away the fault seemed to have been his as much as mine, and yet I was wise enough to see that if I would hold Penelope's regard it would be very rash to show by word or deed that I nursed any resentment. "For your sake I will, Penelope," I said.