Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/147

 understand. He could not see her eyes, but he could feel the struggle that lay in them, as he had felt it that calm morning when they first stood together at the gate.

"Look what you've done!" she said, facing him again in her sudden, unexpected way, hand thrown out as if discovering the material damage laid to his charge.

"Done?" he repeated, amazed by her vehemence.

"Come here whining for your money back, like a tin-horn that's got into a game too big for him. You've got to have your precious money, no matter if it wrecks the company, breaks my uncle and drives us out on the prairie. Before you came here you were writing around to certain stockholders to get their proxies, boping to throw Uncle Hal out!"

"Yes, that's true," Barrett admitted, neither shaken nor ashamed. "I'd do it tomorrow if I could."

"Why didn't you come here like a man, then, and fight for controf in the open, if you think you're the appointed savior of this company?"

"There wasn't anything secret in my attempt to get enough proxies to put in another president at the next election, Miss Nearing. I knew some of the stockholders would make inquiry about it here. Senator Nearing knew what I came here to find out, he told me so the first night; why didn't he send me away?"

"I didn't mean to get out of patience with you, Mr. Barrett," she said, not attempting to answer him, seemingly oblivious to his question, indeed, her mind running back on her hot, ungenerous speech of a moment before. "I've seen them suffer so, Uncle Hal