The Major Part 18

"Not a bad sort at all; very bright fellow, quite popular in this community with the young fellows. He has lots of money, you know, and spends it. Of course, he is fearfully German, military style and all that."

"Seems to own that girl, eh?" said Jack, glancing back over his shoulder at the pair.

"Oh, the two families are quite intimate. Ernest and his sister were in Larry's musical organisations and they are quite good friends."

"By Jove, Sybil, she is wonderful! Why didn't you give me a hint?"

"I did. But really, she has come on amazingly. That college in Winnipeg--"

"Oh, college! It is not a question of college!" said her brother impatiently. "It's herself. Why, Sybil, think of that girl in London in a Worth frock. But no! That would spoil her. She is better just as she is. Jove, she completely knocked me out! I made a fool of myself."

"She has changed indeed," said his sister. "She is a lovely girl and so simple and unaffected. I have come really to love her. We must see a lot of her."

"But where did she get that perfectly charming manner? Do you realise what a perfectly stunning girl she is? Where did she get that style of hers?"

"You must see her mother, Jack. She is a charming woman, simple, quiet, a Quaker, I believe, but quite beautiful manners. Her father, too, is a gentleman, a Trinity man, I understand."

"Well," said her brother with a laugh, "I foresee myself falling in love with that girl in the most approved style."

"You might do worse," replied his sister, "though I doubt if you are not too late."

"Why? That German Johnnie?"

"Well, it is never wise to despise the enemy. He really is a fine chap, his prospects are very good; he has known her for a long while, and he is quite mad about her."

"But, good Lord, Sybil, he's a German!"

"A German," said his sister, "yes. But what difference does that make?

He is a German, but he is also a Canadian. We are all Canadians here whatever else we may be or have ever been. We are all sorts and cla.s.ses, high and low, rich and poor, and of all nationalities--Germans, French, Swedes, Galicians, Russians--but we all shake down into good Canadian citizens. We are just Canadians, and that is good enough for me. We are loyal to Canada first."

"You may be right as far as other nationalities are concerned, but, Sybil, believe me, you do not know the German. I know him and there is no such thing as a German loyal to Canada first."

"But, Jack, you are so terribly insular. You must really get rid of all that. I used to think like you, but here we have got to the place where we can laugh at all that sort of thing."

"I know, Sybil. I know. They are laughing in England to-day at Roberts and Charlie Beresford. But I know Germany and the German mind and the German aim and purpose, and I confess to you that I am in a horrible funk at the state of things in our country. And this chap Switzer--you say he has been in Germany for two years? Well, he has every mark characteristic of the German. He reproduces the young German that I have seen the world over--in Germany, in the Crown Prince's coterie (don't I know them?), in South Africa, in West Africa, in China. He has every mark, the same military style, the same arrogant self-a.s.sertion, the same brutal disregard of the ordinary decencies."

"Why, Jack, how you talk! You are actually excited."

"Did you not notice his manner with that girl? He calmly took possession of her and ignored us who were of her party, actually isolated her from us."

"But, Jack, this seems to me quite outrageous."

"Yes, Sybil, and there are more like you. But I happen to know from experience what I am talking about. The elementary governing principle of life for the young German of to-day is very simple and is easily recognised, and it is this: when you see anything you want, go for it and take it, no matter if all the decencies of life are outraged."

"Jack, I cannot, frankly, I cannot agree with you in regard to young Switzer. I know him fairly well and--"

"Let's not talk about it, Sybil," said her brother, quietly.

"Oh, all right, Jack."

They rode on in silence, Romayne gloomily keeping his eye on the trail before him until they neared the Gwynne gate, when the young man exclaimed abruptly:

"My G.o.d, it would be a crime!"

"Whatever do you mean, Jack?"

"To allow that brute to get possession of that lovely girl."

"But, Jack," persisted his sister. "Brute?"

"Sybil, I have seen them with women, their own and other women; and, now listen to me, I have yet to see the German who regards or treats his frau as an English gentleman treats his wife. That is putting it mildly."

"Oh, Jack!"

"It ought to be stopped."

"Well, stop it then."

"I wish to G.o.d I could," said her brother.

CHAPTER VIII

YOU FORGOT ME

The Lakeside House, substantially built of logs, with "frame" kitchen attached, stood cosily among the clump of trees, poplar and spruce, locally described as a bluff. The bluff ran down to the little lake a hundred yards away, itself an expansion of Wolf Willow Creek. The whitewashed walls gleaming through its festoons of Virginia creeper, a little lawn bordered with beds filled with hollyhocks, larkspur, sweet-william and other old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers and flanked by a heavy border of gorgeous towering sunflowers, gave a general air, not only of comfort and thrift, but of refinement as well, too seldom found in connection with the raw homesteads of the new western country.

At a little distance from the house, at the end of a lane leading through the bluff, were visible the stables, granary and other outhouses, with corral attached.

Within, the house fulfilled the promise of its external appearance and surroundings. There was dignity without stiffness, comfort without luxury, simplicity without any suggestion of the poverty that painfully obtrudes itself.

At the open window whose vine shade at once softened the light and invited the summer airs, sat Mrs. Gwynne, with her basket of mending at her side. Eight years of life on an Alberta ranch had set their mark upon her. The summers' suns and winters' frosts and the eternal summer and winter winds had burned and browned the soft, fair skin of her earlier days. The anxieties inevitable to the struggle with poverty had lined her face and whitened her hair. But her eyes shone still with the serene light of a soul that carries within it the secret of triumph over the carking cares of life.

Seated beside her was her eldest daughter Kathleen, sewing; and stretched upon the floor lay Nora, frankly idle and half asleep, listening to the talk of the other two. Their talk turned upon the theme never long absent from their thought--that of ways and means.

"Tell you what, Mummie," droned Nora, lazily extending her lithe young body to its utmost limits, "there is a simple way out of our never ending worries, namely, a man, a rich man, if handsome, so much the better, but rich he must be, for Kathleen. They say they are hanging round the Gateway City of the West in bunches. How about it, Kate?"

"My dear Nora," gently chided her mother, "I wish you would not talk in that way. It is not quite nice. In my young days--"

"In your young days I know just exactly what happened, Mother. There was always a long queue of eligible young men dangling after the awfully lovely young Miss Meredith, and before she was well out of her teens the gallant young Gwynne carried her off."

"We never talked about those things, my dear," said her mother, shaking her head at her.

"You didn't need to, Mother."

"Well, if it comes to that, Nora," said her sister, "I don't think you need to, very much, either. You have only got to look at--"