“Yes—­yes, this is a man’s affair,” Malcolm conceded, scraping his chin.  “Your brother has been associated with men in business affairs for years; he had some college work.  I’ll see Len.”

There was nothing more to say.  Martie felt instinctively that Len would approve of the sale of the old place, and she was right, but it was galling to have his opinion so eagerly sought by her father, and to have him so gravely quoted.  Len, slow witted and suspicious, thought that there was “something in the idea,” but added pompously that he could not see that the Monroes, as a family, were under any need of obliging the Frosts and the Tates, and that the property was there in any case, and there was no occasion for hurry.

Malcolm repeated these views at the dinner table with great seriousness, and Lydia triumphantly echoed them over and over.  As she and Martie dusted and made beds the older sister poured forth a quiet stream of satisfied comment.  Such things were for men’s deciding, after all, and she, Lydia, never would and never could understand how they were able to settle things so quickly and so wisely.

But Martie was not beaten.  She knew that Len was wrong; there was no time to waste.  The old Mussoo tract, down at the other end of the town, was also under consideration, and the deal might be closed any day.  One quiet, wet day she asked Miss Fanny for leave of absence, and went to the office of old Charley Tate.  Mr. Tate was not there, Potter Street told her, taking his feet from a desk, and slapping his book shut.  However, if there was anything he could do, Mart—?

No; she thanked him.  She would go up to the Bank, and see Mr. Frost.  She met Rose coming out as she went in.

“Hello, Martie!” Rose was all cordiality.  “Nice weather for ducks, isn’t it?  But fortunately you and I aren’t sugar or salt, are we?  Were you going to see Rodney?”

“Clifford Frost,” Martie told her.  Did Rose’s face really brighten a little—­she wondered?

“Oh!  Well, he’s there!  Come soon and see Doris!” Rose got into the motor car, and Martie went into the Bank.

Clifford was a tall man, close to fifty, thinner than Dr. Ben, more ample of figure than Malcolm.  He wore a thin old alpaca coat in the Bank in this warm spring weather.  A green shade was pushed up against his high forehead, which shone a little, and as Martie settled herself opposite him, he took off his big glasses, and dried them in a leisurely fashion with a rotary motion of his white handkerchief.

He was reputedly the richest man in town, but rich in country fashion.  Such property as he had, cattle, a farm or two, several buildings in Main Street, and stock in the Bank, he studied and nursed carefully, not from any feeling of avarice, but because he was temperate and conservative in all his dealings.

Martie liked his office, much plainer than Rodney’s, but with something dignified about its well-worn furnishings that Rodney’s shining brass and glass and mahogany lacked.  She thought that perhaps Ruth had given her father the two pink roses that were toppling in a glass on the desk; she eyed the big photograph of Colonel Frost respectfully.