XL
Bob's obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with his superiorofficer, and that is exactly what he intended to do. Instead, he huntedup Amy. He justified this course by the rather sophistical reflectionthat in her he would encounter the most positive force to the contraryof the proposition he had just received. Amy stood first, last and allthe time for the Service; her heart was wholly in its cause. In heropinion he would gain the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideaspropounded by his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently justarrangement, but failed to account for a certain rather breathlessexcitement as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending over a pan ofpeas.
"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your advice."
She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing directnesspeculiarly her own.
"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company's operations,"he began.
"Well?" she urged him after a pause.
"What do you think of it?"
"I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time ago."
"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old to handlesuch a proposition, and they are looking to me--" he paused.
"That situation is no different than it has been," she suggested. "Whatelse?"
Bob laughed.
"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the situation ischanged. I'm being bribed."
"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.
"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to refuse, withoutseeming positively brutal. They offer me complete charge--to do as Iwant. I can run the works absolutely according to my own ideas. Don'tyou see how I am going to hurt them when I refuse under suchcircumstances?"
"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"
"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered Bob blankly.
"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!" said Amy, thewords fairly tumbling over one another. "You must never dream ofrefusing. It's your chance--it's our chance. It's the one thing we'velacked, the opportunity of showing lumbermen everywhere that the thingcan be made to pay. It's the one thing we've lacked. Oh, _what_ achance!"
"But--but," objected Bob--"it means giving up the Service--after theseyears--and all the wide interests--and the work----"
"You must take it," she swept him away, "and you must do it with allyour power and all the ability that is in you. You must devote yourselfto one idea--make money, make it pay!"
"This from you," said Bob sadly.
"Oh, I am so _glad_!" cried Amy. "Your father is a dear! it's the onefear that has haunted me--lest some visionary incompetent should attemptit, and should fail dismally, and all the great world of business shouldvisit our methods with the scorn due only his incompetence. It was ourgreat danger! And now it is no longer a danger! You can do it, Bob; youhave the knowledge and the ability and the energy--and you must have theenthusiasm. Can't you see it? You _must!_"
She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of her thought,to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of peas promptly deluged him.They both laughed.
"I'd never looked at it that way," Bob confessed.
"It's the only way to look at it."
"Why!" cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new idea. "The moremoney I make, the more good I'll do--that's a brand new idea for you!"
He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in thought.Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration shining in his eyes.
"Yours is the inspiration and the insight--as always," he said humbly."It has always been so. I have seemed to myself to have blundered andstumbled, groping for a way; and you have flown, swift as a shiningarrow, straight to the mark."
"No, no, no, no!" she disclaimed, coming close to him in the vigour ofher denial. "You are unfair."
She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of herdisclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so that again Bobsaw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once more there arose tofull tide in his breast the answering tenderness that would care for herand guard her from the rough jostling of the world. The warmth of heryoung body tingled in recollection along his arm, and then, strangelyenough, without any other direct cause whatever, the tide rose higher toflood his soul. He drew her to him, crushing her to his breast. For aninstant she yielded to him utterly; then drew away in a panic.
"My dear, my dear!" she half whispered; "not here!"