Perhaps the up-building of large
financial schemes presupposes a certain degree of imagination. I
am becoming a romantic New York man of business, and I revel in it.
Kedgers, for instance," with the smile which, somehow, suggested Betty,
"Kedgers and the Lilium Giganteum, Mrs. Welden and old Doby threaten to
develop into quite necessary factors in the scheme of happiness. What
Betty has felt is even more comprehensible than it seemed at first."
They walked and rode together about the countryside; when Mount Dunstan
itself was swept clean of danger, and only a few convalescents lingered
to be taken care of in the huge ballroom, they spent many days in going
over the estate. The desolate beauty of it appealed to and touched Mr.
Vanderpoel, as it had appealed to and touched his daughter, and, also,
wakened in him much new and curious delight. But Mount Dunstan, with a
touch of his old obstinacy, insisted that he should ignore the beauty,
and look closely at less admirable things.
"You must see the worst of this," he said. "You must understand that I
can put no good face upon things, that I offer nothing, because I have
nothing to offer."
If he had not been swept through and through by a powerful and rapturous
passion, he would have detested and abhorred these days of deliberate
proud laying bare of the nakedness of the land.
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