After awhile she glanced away, her gaze wandering over the luxurious furnishings of the room.  And it occurred to her to wonder how much, if any, of the excellent taste of the decorations owed inception to the man at the desk.  No.  Not much.  The cheque-book and the decorator’s artist must have been responsible.  This grossly Teutonic creature with his cynical, commercial mind, was something of an anachronism, and could never have inspired the perfect harmony of the palatial offices of his Corporation.  It was rather a pity.  He had been exceedingly good to her.  She would have liked to think that he was the genius of the whole structure of the Skandinavia, even to the decorations of the office.  But it was impossible.

The man blotted and folded his letter.  He enclosed and sealed it.  He even addressed it himself.

“I’m kind of sorry I had to break in on you while you were fixing those reports,” he said, in his friendliest fashion.  “But, you see, I’m just through with the Board, and we took a bunch of decisions that need handling right away.  Tell me,” he went on, an ironical light creeping into his smiling eyes, “you reckon you’ve set your finger on the real trouble with our dropping output.  I want to know about it because the Board and I can’t be sure we’ve located it right.”

The sarcasm hurt.  It was not intended to.  Elas Peterman had no desire in the world to hurt this girl.  A cleverer man would have avoided it.  But this man had no refinement of thought or feeling.  Cynicism and sarcasm were his substitutes for a humour he did not possess.

Nancy’s cheeks flushed hotly.  But she stifled her feelings.  She was confident of herself, and despite the manner of the challenge, she knew the moment of her great opportunity had come.

With a quick movement she crossed her knees and leant forward.  She smiled in response.

“Yet, it’s easy,” she said boldly, with bland retaliation.  “The reports are not good.  And the trouble stands out clear as daylight.  I guess a big scale contour map is the key to it.  We’ve ‘hand-weeded’ the Shagaunty Valley.  It’s picked bare to the bone.  The folks have cleared the forests right away to the higher slopes of the river.  We’re moving farther and farther away from the river highway.  Well, that’s all right in its way.  Ordinarily that would just mean our light railways are extending farther, and a few cents more are added to our transport costs.  Owing to our concentration of organisation that wouldn’t signify.  No.  It’s Nature, it’s the forest itself turning us down.  And the map, and the reports show that.  The camps are right out on the plateau surrounding the valley, which is unprotected from winter storms.  The close, luxurious growth of the valley we have been accustomed to is gone.  The standing cordage of lumber is no less, only in bulk, girth.  The trees are mostly less than half the girth.  The result?  Why, they have to work farther out.  Each camp cuts over four times the area.  Instead of a proportion of, say, two trees in five, it’s about one in, say, ten.  It looks like a simple sum.  I should say we’ve lumbered that valley at least one season too long.”