“To no effect at all,” Martha said gloomily.
“Oh, but I think he’s had an extraordinarily distinct effect!”
“Well, I’m afraid,” Harlan said slowly;—“I’m afraid he’s been successful in making himself the laughing stock of the town.”
“Not ‘just’ one,” the precise Harlan replied. “They think he’s the biggest one they’ve ever seen.”
Martha uttered a sound of angry protest, though she did not speak at once, but stared frowningly at the fire; then she turned abruptly to Harlan. “Why don’t you help him?”
“I? Well, he hasn’t asked me to help him, precisely. Did he tell you I——”
“No; he didn’t say anything about you. But why don’t you?”
“As a matter of fact,” Harlan explained, a little annoyed, “he didn’t ask me for help, but he did want me to go in with him on strictly business grounds. He was certain that if I joined him as a partner, it would be a great thing for both of us. He wanted me to do the same thing he did—invest what grandfather left me in making the Ornaby farm blossom with horrible bungalows and corner drug stores.”
“And you wouldn’t,” Martha said affirmatively.
“Why should I, since I don’t believe in his scheme?”
“But why couldn’t you believe in Dan himself?”
“Good heavens!” Harlan exclaimed, and uttered a sound of impatient laughter. “I’ve never looked upon Dan as precisely a genius, Martha. Besides, even if by a miracle he could do something of what he dreams he can, what on earth would be the use of it? It would only be an extension of ugliness into a rather inoffensive landscape. I don’t believe he can do it in the first place; and in the second, I don’t believe in doing it even if it can be done.”
“Don’t you?” she asked, and looked at him thoughtfully. “What do you believe in, Harlan?”
“A number of things,” he said gravely. “For instance, I don’t believe in kicking up a lot of dust and confusion to turn a nice old farm into horrible-looking lots with hideous signboards blaring all over ’em.”
“I asked you what you believed in,” she explained. “You said you believed in ‘a number of things,’ and went straight on: ‘For instance, I don’t believe——’”
“Yes,” he said, “I was keeping to the argument about Dan.”
Martha laughed at his calm sophistry, but was content to seem to accept it and to waive her point. “What do your father and mother think of ‘Ornaby Addition’?”