“It is. She has owned it since she was a baby.” “Then I wish to make love to the owner.” The old man stopped short in his tracks. He reached out and plucked a spray of cedar—flat, evergreen, like a flower so loved and pressed that it could never lose its fragrance. The spray trembled a little as he held it. “Are you serious?” “I was never more serious.” There was a long silence, during which the old man gazed at the Laurentians and turned the spray of cedar in his fingers. “Dr. Rich, when I say make love, I mean for the next fifty years, but so help me God, it shall never be unwelcome love.” The old scholar laid a hand on his shoulder. “In such matters, my boy, you are an open book that any man may read. But it can’t be three hours since you met her.” “Yes, it sounds like a freshman.” “Not necessarily. Landor was thirty-six when he first met his wife. He vowed that she was the nicest girl in the room and that he’d marry her. He did so within six weeks, and lived to repent. But Jean’s father first met his wife when he was forty-six, and married her within a week, and has warmed his hands by that immortal fire till this very hour. How old are you?” “Twenty-six, sir.” “Just the age of the son I lost.” “Dr. Rich, she told me. If you could find it in your heart to let me try to take his place so long as we both shall live, you’d make up to me for all my disappointments.” “In what have you been disappointed?” “I have wished to study the innermost nature of matter. Instead I must earn my living as a chemical engineer.” “You have no desire for commercial success?” “Not the slightest.” The old man caught at the cedar tree as if to steady himself before a firing squad. “My son, I will not stand in your way.” Then he slowly proceeded down the path, glancing neither to left nor to right. “Marvin, I assume that you will not be precipitate. Give her time. I wish I were Laban, and could make you serve seven years.” “I’m game, sir.” “Better keep off business topics. She’s patriotic, but she’s like the girls who mobbed Cato. She can’t be driven.” “What had Cato done?” “He wanted their earrings to convert into war galleys. He was determined to crush Carthaginian competition in business. They declined, not that they loved Rome less but that they loved earrings more. And my daughter loves her island.” Marvin sighed deeply as he began to see the complications ahead of him, but was recalled to the present by his companion. “How long is yonder grain boat?” “About four hundred and twenty feet.” “Correct to the foot. And it’s about the length of the Egyptian transport used by Augustus to ruin Rome. He had lectured his nobles for not marrying, but he brought their farmers into competition with Egyptian slaves. By the same token, though our friends across the river are not Egyptian slaves, the entire Canadian crop will go into storage this year, and in 1920 American wheat will not bring what it cost to raise it.”