Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/131

 "Of course I like it or I wouldn't be here."

"You're not here merely for money?"

"No."

"No; I know you're not," he agreed, puzzling over her in a new, surprising way. Here she was; here she had been, working beside his father for pay. Previously that had sufficiently explained her. Now he asked: "What else do you work for?"

"What?" repeated Ellen and confessed: "I don't know."

"You like the city better than the country?"

"That's not it," she denied, "for I don't like to live in the city so much of the time. I like business and the people in business."

"Do you? Do you like them better than the people at home?" he demanded, and glanced out the window over the lake—Lida's sea, choked with ice and floe. "Your father works at a clean, clear job; he sails his ship; he sets his course and keeps it; loads his ore, goes back in ballast, and loads again. No Nu—" Jay caught himself quickly. "No Lew Alban and no Metten brothers can make any difference to him. Nothing but wind and weather can touch him. Would you like your father in business . . . holding Metten?"

"Not father," said Ellen quickly, and gasping a little so that Jay laughed at her.

"Why not, if you like business so?"

"I don't know."

"What do you feel about him; that he's above business?"

"Not above it," Ellen denied.

"Certainly not below it."