Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/244

 been careful to avoid. But Jack, baffled and angry, was not in a mood to temporize; besides, that was never his way.

The fine shades of emotion were not for him, but he had the perception to feel that if he remained five minutes longer in that little room the game might be lost irretrievably. In fact, it seemed to be lost already. The specter of defeat was hovering round him; nay, it was embodied in the very atmosphere he breathed.

Knowing the moment to be full of peril, he determined to force himself to the greatest delicacy of which he was capable, for this might prove the final throw. The look in her eyes seemed to tell him that all was lost, but he would set the thought aside and act as if he were not aware of it.

A long and very trying pause lent weight to this decision, and then at last he said in a tone altogether different from the one he had recently used, "Tell me, why are you so determined to keep a hardshell like Uncle Albert on his pedestal?"

The form of the question provoked a wry little smile. "We poor females are by nature conservative."

"You are that," he said. "Take you and me. We've both seen the world. And the world has changed me altogether, but I should say it hasn't changed you at all."

"No; I don't think it has," she admitted ruefully, "in the things that are really important."

"Six years ago, before I went West, I saw Bridport House at pretty much the same angle you see it now. But I suppose if you get lumbering timber, or living by your wits, or looking for gold in the Yukon, it mighty soon comes home to you that it is only realities that