Maud Barrington laughed somewhat curiously.  “You are a very wise woman, aunt, but you are a little transparent now and then,” she said.  “At least he shall have a fair trial without prejudice or favor—­and if he fails, as fail he will, we shall find the means of punishing him.”

“We?” said the elder lady, a trifle maliciously.

The girl nodded as she moved towards the doorway, and then turned a moment with the folds of the big red curtain flung behind her.  It forced up the sweeping lines of a figure so delicately molded that its slenderness was scarcely apparent, for Maud Barrington still wore a long somber dress that had assisted in her triumphs in the city.  It emphasized the clear pallor of her skin and the brightness of her eyes, as she held herself very erect in a pose which, while assumed in mockery, had yet in it something that was almost imperial.

“Yes,” she said.  “We.  You know who is the power behind the throne at Silverdale, and what the boys call me.  And now, good-night.  Sleep well, dear.”

She went out, and Miss Barrington sat very still gazing with eyes that were curiously thoughtful into the fire.  “Princess of the Prairie—­and it fits her well,” she said and then sighed a little.  “And if there is a trace of hardness in the girl it may be fortunate.  We all have our troubles—­and wheat is going down.”

In the meanwhile, late as it was, Colonel Barrington and his chief lieutenant, Gordon Dane, sat in his log-walled smoking-room talking with a man he sold his wheat through in Winnipeg.  The room was big and bare.  There were a few fine heads of antelope upon the walls, and beneath them an armory of English-made shotguns and rifles, while a row of silver-mounted riding crops, and some handled with ivory, stood in a corner.  All these represented amusement, while two or three treatises on veterinary surgery and agriculture, lying amidst English stud-books and racing records, presumably stood for industry.  The comparison was significant, and Graham, the Winnipeg wheat-broker, noticed it as he listened patiently to the views of Colonel Barrington, who nevertheless worked hard enough in his own fashion.  Unfortunately it was rather the fashion of the English gentleman than that common on the prairie.

“And now,” he said, with a trace of the anxiety he had concealed in his eyes, “I am open to hear what you can do for me.”

Graham smiled a little.  “It isn’t very much, Colonel.  I’ll take all your wheat off you at three cents down.”

Now Barrington did not like the broker’s smile.  It savored too much of equality, and, though he had already unbent as far as he was capable of doing, he had no great esteem for men of business.  Nor did it please him to be addressed as “Colonel.”

“That,” he said coldly, “is out of the question.  I would not sell at the last market price.  Besides, you have hitherto acted as my broker.”