The new owner lived in the old house almost as quietly as Mrs. Savage, in the visions of Nimbus, went on living there. Harlan had several times thought of going to Italy, but the idea never culminated in action. “I wanted to come, though,” he told Martha, as they sat on her veranda that hot morning, the day after her return. “I wanted to more than I ever wanted to do anything else. You see I’ve almost stopped going to the office; I just dangle about there sometimes to please father, but I don’t care to practise law. It’s a silly way of spending one’s life after all, fighting the sordid disputes of squabbling people. There was really nothing to keep me here.” She did not alter her attitude, but still looked out upon the old familiar unfamiliar scene from beneath her sheltering curved fingers. “If you wanted to come, why didn’t you?” “Because I’d only have done it to see you, and I suppose I have a remnant of pride. If you’d like a better answer, think of what I told you about yourself. I didn’t come because I know you’re stony. I knew you hadn’t changed.” “About what?” “About me,” he said, and added: “About anything!” At this she turned her head and looked at him, for he spoke with a sour significance. “Well, have you changed, Harlan?” she asked gravely. “About you,” he answered. “I haven’t—unfortunately.” “But I meant: Have _you_ changed about anything? Aren’t you just what you were five or six years ago, only a little intensified—and richer?” “Ah, I knew I’d get that,” he said. “I knew it would come before I could be with you long. I told my father and mother the very day my grandmother’s will was read that you’d hate me for it, and mother agreed quickly enough.” “Why, no,” Martha said, and her surprise was genuine. “Why should I hate you because Mrs. Savage——” “Because she left it to me and not to Dan, and because I didn’t think it was right or sensible to help him with any of it.” “But he hasn’t needed any help,” Martha said. “It’s much better for him to be doing it without any help, and so splendidly.” “So splendidly?” Harlan repeated, and he stared at her. “But you don’t take what Dan says seriously, do you? You don’t think that just because he says——” “I haven’t seen him, Harlan.” “But you speak as if you believe he’s actually succeeding in making that old fantasia of his into a reality.” “Well,” she said, “isn’t he?” “What? Why, he’s still just barely keeping his head above water. He sells vacant lots out there, yes—but to keep on selling them he has to put all they sell for into developing the land he hasn’t sold. It amounts precisely to the same thing as giving the property away. His mortgages used to worry him to death, but he’s got most of the place mortgaged now for three times what it was five years ago. You see——” “I see that the land must be worth three times as much as it was five years ago, since he can borrow three times as much on it.” “But, my dear Martha——”