“Ah, cielos! That is nothing less than the truth.  What a pity, too, my young friend, that we could not have found it out earlier.  Our affair, perhaps—­we might have reached a satisfactory agreement.  This winter work, it is costing you something.”

“A good many extra thousand.”

“And, alas, costing me even more!  But it is too late now.”  He made a tragic gesture.  “It has gone too far.  Within two or three weeks it will be settled one way or the other.  For you if the weather remains good; for me if the weather becomes stormy.”  He again studied the moving horses along the canal.  “For me then—­perhaps.  You might not allow even a great storm to stop you, in some way.  This winter is remarkable; there seem to be no storms to happen.  You’re very lucky.”

“Yes, I am in that respect.”

“Well, I’ve done all that I shall do in the matter.  I’ve become quite calm, fatalistic.  There’s nothing else to be.”  He gathered up his reins.

“That’s a good team you have,” Lee remarked.

“Of the very best.  I disliked to use them in this cold, but Charlie had gone with the car to Kennard.  Va!  He is never at home any more.  It would be well if I made him drive a team on your ditch.”

“Send him along; I’ll give him a job,” Lee said.

The banker shook his head.

“He would say I was crazy and he wouldn’t come.  He doesn’t even attend to matters that require attention.  This winter he has been running too much with idle men in town and spending money as if it took no effort to get it, as if it could be picked off of weeds.  It’s very perplexing.  I am too easy with Charlie, I let him have his way too much.  I should put him in a pair of overalls for a while and say, ’You are going out with a band of sheep; you have to work.’  Several times I’ve made up my mind to do that, but when the moment came I couldn’t say it.  He isn’t robust, he has always had the best of everything, and he’s been educated in a college.”

“Cut off his allowance and take away his automobile.  He would stay at home and attend to business then,” Lee offered.

“But it would shame him.  He isn’t a little boy any longer; he’s thirty years old.  The trouble is that he isn’t like me, particular and careful; he’s wild and impatient and reckless.  His mother wasn’t that way, I am not that way—­I don’t know where he got that nature.”

Menocal senior drove off and Bryant turned back to his work.  The pity of the thing was, as the banker had stated, that they had been hasty in the beginning, that they had not sought to come to an understanding, some arrangement.  It was another mistake.  To Lee his whole past here was beginning to appear a record of oversights, incredible misjudgements, blinded blunders, and ghastly mistakes.

CHAPTER XXIV