Next morning after breakfast the doctor went off to his garden, and
Marvin sat down on the porch to wait till something should bring her out
there. In an hour she emerged, bearing a blue bowl and his bag of peas.
“I thought you had gone fishing.”
“No, I am waiting to buy your island.”
“To do what?”
“To buy your island.”
“What do you want it for?”
“I don’t exactly know.”
“Mr. Mahan, you are offering to buy something that you have no earthly
use for. That is pity again. You have guessed that the Little Pine’s
present was needed. But I don’t like to be pitied. In fact I won’t be
pitied.”
“I’m not offering pity. I’m offering ten thousand.”
“What, for a thing that I pay just about two dollars a year in taxes on?
The grammar isn’t very good, but it’s as good as the judgment you show.”
“Well, now, darlin’—that is to say, Miss Jean Winifred Rich—my judgment
may be poor, but consider. Look at that object out there in the water.
It has a hundred pines worth thirty dollars apiece as they stand, and a
hundred more worth half as much. You are selling valuable timber, and
harbors, and wonderful views, and easy access to transportation. You are
selling a perfect site for a summer home.”
“I’m not selling anything, Mr. Mahan, but I’d like to ask if you wish to
build a summer home.”
“Nothing could please me more, but I am not buying for myself.”
“Whom are you buying for?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
“What is it likely to be used for?”
He gazed off toward the island, which lay in detailed perfection under
the cloudy light. It was unimprovable beauty. Not one fairy foreland or
one spray of pine ought to be changed.
“I don’t know exactly, but it is composed of pure silica.”
“What is silica used for?”
“Silica is used in making glass, porcelain, grindstones, soaps,
textiles, polishing-powders, and polishing-wheels.”
“Is that all?”
“No. One of its commonest uses is to harden steel.”
She looked at him thoughtfully and made the peas pop faster and faster.
“I think, but I’m not quite sure, that you were willing to make love to
me to get yourself a steel hardener.”
“Jean, you know better. I told you last night that you were harder than
iron, but today you are hard enough to serve as a laboratory crucible to
melt silica in. You have refused to marry me, and that’s all right. But
you know I’m not trying to bribe you.”
She looked him in the eyes, and then, because she was as honest as he,
she recanted.
“I beg your pardon. But one thing I’m sure of. You are willing to let
them cut down the pines and blow all that beauty to smithereens. So if
it comes to hardness, you are just as hard as I am. But there’s one
thing you haven’t thought of at all.”
“What’s that, dearest?”
“Explosions.”
“Well, for a wonder, I did think of them. That’s why I tore up the will.
I thought that if he would sell his farm for four thousand, I would buy
it and give it to my employer for the quarrymen.”
“Oh, that was lovely of you, Mr. Mahan! You really are a dear fellow,
and considerate, and thoughtful—but I’m awfully sorry to see you mixed
up in business. In the first place, father’s poor little place is dearer
to him than the best farm on earth. In the second place, you do just
what your employer wants you to do. You are too obedient. You came up
here to buy that island without knowing or caring what use would be made
of it. What would you say of a man who did that?”
“I’d say he’d been in the army.”
“But the army is different. In the army you have to trust your colonel.”
“It’s the same now.”
“Then that settles it. You have sold your conscience, and it doesn’t
seem to trouble you the least bit. I’ll go and get your six dollars—”
“My six dollars?”
“Yes, the balance of what you paid me.”
“Do you mean I’m dismissed?”
“I do think you had better go. I’m so sorry—” She flashed into the house
and returned with the money.
But he was gone already.