Rankin said nothing.

Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to remain so, and he went on.

“I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I believe I’m developing a distaste for money.  It’s simply another term for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, has somehow become hateful to me.”  He looked up into the night.

“I used to think I was happy back in England.  I had my home and my associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, their grandfathers of my grandfather’s class.  As a small landlord I had my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now that I could never return to that life again.  Looking back, I see its intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness.  By comparison it’s like the relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here.  There, perhaps I could see a few miles:  here, I look away over leagues and leagues of distance.  It’s symbolic.”  The voice paused; the face, turned directly toward his companion’s, tried in the half-darkness to read its expression.  “I’ve been in this prairie country long enough now to realize that financially I’ve made a mistake.  I can earn a living, and that’s all; but nevertheless I’m happy—­happier than I ever realized it was possible for me to be.  I’ve got enough—­more would be a burden to me.  If I have a trouble in the world, it’s because I see the inevitable prospect of money in the future,—­money I don’t want, for I’m an only son and my father is comparatively wealthy.  Without turning his hand, his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year.  He’s getting along in life.  Some day—­it may be five years, it may be fifteen—­he will die and leave it to me.  I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family dignity.  It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I was born.”

Still Rankin said nothing.  For any indication he gave, the other’s revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited in the savings bank against a rainy day.

But Scotty was now fairly under headway.  He stripped his reserve and confidence bare.

“You see now why I’m glad to consider your proposition.  Whatever I believe myself must be of secondary importance.  I’ve others to think about—­Florence and her mother.  Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf.  She doesn’t realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold.  Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of life,—­the artificial side,—­but lived right here, knowing what we taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, and living close to nature.  But it can’t be.  I’ve got to develop her, cultivate her, fit her for any society.”  The voice paused, and the speaker turned his face away.