The Coast of Adventure by Harold Bindloss

Author:Harold Bindloss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620125588
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter XIX - The Cuban Spy

*

Gore left Banner's Post abruptly, to Evelyn's relief, and on the morning after his departure she and Cliffe stood on the steps before the other guests had come down to breakfast. It had rained all night, the mist hung low about Long Mountain's side, and a fresh wind woke waves of sound from the rustling pines. A creel hung round Cliffe's shoulders, and he contemplated the dripping woods with a smile of half-apologetic satisfaction.

"The fishing should be great to-day!" he exclaimed. "But I feel that I'm playing truant. I ought to be back at the office. Guess the trout I catch will cost me high; but the temptation is pretty strong when I see the water rise."

"I'm glad you have been rash for once," Evelyn replied. "Besides, you have an office full of people who can look after things for you."

Cliffe shook his head.

"That's the excuse I tried to make, but it won't quite work. If you want to be a successful operator, you have to sit tight with your finger on the pulse of the market. A beat or two more or less makes a big difference. Finance soon gets feverish."

"And you are one of the doctors who send its temperature up or down."

"No; that's a wrong idea. Once on a time the big men did something of the kind, but now the dollar's a world-force that's grown too strong for them. We gave it a power we can't control; it drives us into combines and mergers we didn't plan. It's a blind force that rolls along undirected, over our bodies if we get in its way. All we can do is to try to guess its drift. The successful man is the one who does so first."

"I wonder whether you're to be pitied or envied. The work must be absorbing, and it's simple, in a way."

"Simple!" Cliffe exclaimed.

"Well, you have an object; your aims are definite and you know, more or less, how to carry them out. We others, who have no purpose in life, spend our time in amusements that leave us dissatisfied. When we stop to think, we feel that we might do something better, but we don't know what it is. The outlook is blank."

Cliffe gave her a sharp glance. Evelyn had changed in the last few months, and she had been strangely quiet since her refusal of Gore. Seeing his interest, she laughed.

"I'm not asking for sympathy; and I mustn't keep you from the trout. Go and catch as many as you can. It must be nice to feel that you have only to pick up a fishing-rod and be young again."

She walked to the gate with him, but Cliffe stopped when they reached it, for a big automobile was lurching down the uneven road. The mud splashed about the car indicated distance traveled at furious speed, but it slowed at the bend near the gate, and Cliffe sighed as he recognized Robinson.

"I guess this stops my fishing," he said in a resigned tone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.