stiffness.

Alton took up another cigar and lighted it. "I don't quite know that
it is," he said. "You see, I remember a good deal what my mother had
to put up with, and it has made me kind of sorry for women who have to
do without the things they have been used to. Now Miss Deringham has
had a pretty good time in the old country?"

Deringham moved his head very slightly. "I scarcely think we need go
into that, but it is incontrovertible that the loss of Carnaby would
make a difference to her," he said.

Alton sat silent a space, and then while Deringham wondered, smiled a
little. "And she might have kept it but for a very little thing that
happened a month or two ago," he said. "If the juniper-twigs had
broken it would have saved considerable trouble to everybody. I was
back there in the mountains looking for a silver lead, you see."

"Silver mines are, I understand, not always profitable to the man who
finds them, and I should have fancied you had already sufficient scope
for your energies," said Deringham dryly.

Alton laughed, but there was a trace of grimness in his voice. "If I
once get my stakes in on the lead this one's going to be, and if I
could get the dollars I could do a good deal for Somasco," he said.
"We want roads and mills, the biggest orchard in the province, and a
fruit cannery, and we're going to have them presently. That's why I
wanted the silver."

"You did not find it then?" said Deringham, who was not unwilling to