His bitterness became acute when some time later Charlie Menocal came driving with Ruth along the rutted trail by the canal to where he stood inspecting a new drop.

“You wait, Charlie; I’ll not be long,” she said, as she alighted.  “Come with me out of earshot, will you, Lee?”

They moved to a spot that satisfied her.

“I heard you were doing this and I asked Charlie to bring me here,” she began.  “I wanted to see for myself.  And it’s true.  You’re going ahead and make these things out of concrete.  I’m indignant, I’m hurt.  After you led me to rely——­”

Bryant stopped her sharply.

“No, Ruth, not that.  I’m sorry that you gained the impression I should use wood instead of concrete; and it never was in my mind to do so, to use wood.  My decision was fully made when you raised the matter in the hotel parlour at Kennard, and I explained my reasons for the decision.  I didn’t tell you bluntly, perhaps.  I waited, trusting that you would come round to my way of thinking and realize that I could only follow my own best judgment.”

“I haven’t changed my mind not one particle,” she exclaimed, vehemently.

“But, Ruth——­”

“I think you’re throwing away good money, deliberately.  That is, if you really ever make any money on your project.  You may lose everything.”

“I may not, also.  But if I should, the father of the fellow sitting in the car yonder waiting for you would be responsible.  As for these drops, Ruth, Gretzinger was wrong and I was right, and so they’re being built of concrete.  Now please forget all about it.”

“And that you refused my request, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t do that; it’s too much to ask.”  An angry gleam shot from her eyes.  “You might have thought more of me and less of yourself.  You put your old canal first and me second.”  With which she swung about and marched off to the car, and it went away, rocking and lurching down the uneven trail.

Lee stood looking after it.  Her last words brought up the memory of the occasion when she had playfully uttered the like, one night in August, with the added inquiry, “What if you had to choose between us?” Were things drifting to such an issue?  Would she at last force upon him that hard choice?  He flung up a hand in a gesture of despair.  Some metamorphosis had occurred in her; she was not the simple and loving Ruth to whom he had offered himself that day they picked berries in the canon.  Or was it that only now her real self was revealed?  Was it that she was capable of loving only selfishly?  Did she love him at all?

The questions bit like acid into his heart.  And a new one, that startled and dismayed his soul:  Did he love her?  Yes—­the Ruth she yet was.  But he could never love the woman she seemed on the way to become, breathing an exciting and unhealthy atmosphere, seeking purely personal gain, indifferent to worthy objects, selfish, hard, mercenary, worldly.  No, that kind of Ruth would kill love.