The Conflict | Page 8

wonder why he does it,'' said Miss Hastings, reflectively. ``I must ask him. I want to hear what he says to excuse himself.'' In fact, she had not the faintest interest in the views of this queer unknown; her chief reason for saying she had was to enjoy David Hull's jealousy.
``Before you try to meet Victor,'' said Hull, in a constrained, desperate way, ``please speak to your father about it.''
``I certainly shall,'' replied the girl. ``As soon as he comes home this afternoon, I'm going to talk to him about that damage suit. That has got to be straightened out.'' An expression of resolution, of gentleness and justice abruptly transformed her face. ``You may not believe it, but I have a conscience.'' Absently, ``A curious sort of a conscience--one that might become very troublesome, I'm afraid--in some circumstances.''
Instantly the fine side of David Hull's nature was to the fore--the dominant side, for at the first appeal it always responded. ``So have I, Jen,'' said he. ``I think our similarity in that respect is what draws me so strongly to you. And it's that that makes me hope I can win you. Oh, Jen--there's so much to be done in the world--and you and I could have such a splendid happy life doing our share of it.''
She was once more looking at him with an encouraging interest. But she said, gently: ``Let's not talk about that any more to-day, Davy.''
``But you'll think about it?'' urged he.
``Yes,'' said she. ``Let's be friends--and--and see what happens.''
Hull strolled up to the house with her, but refused to stop for lunch. He pleaded an engagement; but it was one that could--and in other circumstances would --have been broken by telephone. His real reason for hurrying away was fear lest Jane should open out on the subject of Victor Dorn with her father, and, in her ignorance of the truth as to the situation, should implicate him.
She found her father already at home and having a bowl of crackers and milk in a shady corner of the west veranda. He was chewing in the manner of those whose teeth are few and not too secure. His brows were knitted and he looked as if not merely joy but everything except disagreeable sensation had long since fled his life beyond hope of return--an air not uncommon among the world's successful men. However, at sight of his lovely young daughter his face cleared somewhat and he shot at her from under his wildly and savagely narrowed eyebrows a glance of admiration and tenderness--a quaint expression for those cold, hard features.
Everyone spoke of him behind his back as ``Old Morton Hastings.''
In fact, he was barely past sixty, was at an age at which city men of the modern style count themselves young and even entertain--not without reason-- hope of being desired of women for other than purely practical reasons. He was born on a farm-- was born with an aversion to physical exertion as profound as was his passion for mental exertion. We never shall know how much of its progress the world owes to the physically lazy, mentally tireless men. Those are they who, to save themselves physical exertion, have devised all manner of schemes and machines to save labor. And, at bottom, what is progress but man's success in his effort to free himself from manual labor --to get everything for himself by the labor of other men and animals and of machines? Naturally his boyhood of toil on the farm did not lessen Martin Hastings' innate horror of ``real work.'' He was not twenty when he dropped tools never to take them up again. He was shoeing a horse in the heat of the cool side of the barn on a frightful August day. Suddenly he threw down the hammer and said loudly: ``A man that works is a damn fool. I'll never work again.'' And he never did.
As soon as he could get together the money--and it was not long after he set about making others work for him--he bought a buggy, a kind of phaeton, and a safe horse. Thenceforth he never walked a step that could be driven. The result of thirty-five years of this life, so unnatural to an animal that is designed by Nature for walking and is punished for not doing so-- the result of a lifetime of this folly was a body shrivelled to a lean brown husk, legs incredibly meagre and so tottery that they scarcely could bear him about. His head--large and finely shaped--seemed so out of proportion that he looked at a glance senile. But no one who had business dealings with him suspected him of senility or any degree of weakness. He spoke in a thin dry voice, shrouded in sardonic humor.
``I don't care for