From the second floor there came to her the sound of voices:--
"I tells you, Muster Hart, you got to rip the whoal damn piping out from roof to basement if you wants to have a good yob of it. I tole you that way back six weeks ago. It waren't specified right from the beginning."
"I'll speak to Rollings about it to-morrow and see what can be done."
"That's what you say every time, and he don't do nutting," the Swede growled.
"See here, Anderson! Who's running this job?" ...
The girl strolled away from the voices toward the bluff, where she could see the gray bosom of the lake. The twilight trees, the waveless lake soothed her: they were real, her world,--she felt them in her soul! The house back there, the men and women of it, were shadows on the marge.
When he came up to her she rested her head on his shoulder, looking at him with vague longing, desiring to keep him from something not clearly defined in her own mind. Her lover drew her to him and kissed her, once, twice, while her eyes searched his wistfully. She seemed passive and cold in his arms. But suddenly she closed her longing eyes, and her lips met his, hungrily, tensely, in the desire to adore, to love abundantly, which was her whole life.
"We must hurry to get that train,--dear. When we live out here we'll have to sport a motor car, won't we?" he said buoyantly.
She answered slowly, "I don't know that I should want to live just here, after all."
"Why, I thought you were crazy about the country! And I've been thinking it might be the very thing for us to do. There's such a lot of building in these places now since business has looked up. Mrs. Phillips has asked me several times why I didn't move out here on the shore. Just before she left to-day she said in a joking way that if I wanted to build a lodge for her, I might take it for a year or so. Of course that's a joke. But I know she's bought lately a lot more property on the ravine, and she might be willing to let me have a small bit on reasonable terms. She's been so friendly all along!"
He was still in the flush of his triumph, and talked rapidly of all the plans that opened out before his fervent ambition. Suddenly he took note of the girl's mood and said sharply, "Nell, I believe you don't like her!"