The third day after the dinner Elliot dropped around to the Pagets with intent to get Sheba into a set of tennis. Diane sat on the porch darning socks.
"Sheba is out walking with Mr. Macdonald," she explained in answer to a question as to the whereabouts of her guest.
"Oh, he's back, is he?" remarked Gordon moodily.
Mrs. Paget was quite cheerful on that subject. "He came back this morning. Sheba has gone up with him to see the Lucky Strike."
"You're going to marry her to that man if you can, aren't you?" he charged.
"If I can, Gordon." She slipped a darning-ball into one of little Peter's stockings and placidly trimmed the edges of the hole.
Gordon understood her smile to mean that he was jealous.
"Maybe I am. That's not the point," he answered, just as if she had made her accusation in words.
"Suppose you tell me what the point is," she suggested, both amused and annoyed.
"He isn't good enough for her. You know that perfectly well."
"Good enough!" She shrugged her shoulders. "What man _is_ good enough for a nice girl if you come to that? There are other things beside sugary goodness. Any man who is strong can make himself good enough for the woman he loves."
"Generally speaking, yes. But Colby Macdonald is different."
"Thank Heaven he is," she retorted impatiently. Then added after a moment: "He isn't a Sunday-School superintendent if that's what you mean."
"That isn't what I mean at all. But there's such a thing as a difference between right and wrong, isn't there?"
"Oh, yes. For instance, Mr. Macdonald is right about the need of developing Alaska and the way to do it, and you are wrong."
He could not help smiling a little at the adroit way she tried to sidetrack him, even though he was angry at her. But he had no intention of letting her go without freeing his mind.
"I'm talking about essential right and wrong. Miss O'Neill is idealizing Macdonald. I don't suppose you've told her, for instance, that he made his first money in the North running a dance hall."
"No, I haven't told her any such thing, because it isn't true," she replied scornfully. "He owned an opera house and brought in a company of players. I dare say they danced. That's very different, as you'd know if you didn't have astigmatism of the mind."