And so they talked on, she close in his arms, their cheeks together; building castles of rose marble and ivory, laying out gardens with vistas ending in summer sunsets; dreaming dreams that lovers only dream,

CHAPTER XXIV

The check “struck” MacFarlane just as the chairman had said it would, wiping out his losses by the flood with something ahead for his next undertaking.

That the verdict was a just one was apparent from the reports of both McGowan’s and the Railroad Company’s experts.  These showed that the McGowan mortar held but little cement, and that not of the best; that the backing of the masonry was composed of loose rubble instead of split stone, and that the collapse of his structure was not caused by the downpour, but by the caving in of culverts and spillways, which were built of materials in direct violation of the provisions of the contract.  Even then there might have been some doubt as to the outcome but for Holker Morris’s testimony.  He not only sent in his report, but appeared himself, he told the Council, so as to answer any questions Mr. McGowan or his friends might ask.  He had done this, as he said openly at the meeting, to aid his personal friend, Mr. MacFarlane, and also that he might raise his voice against the slipshod work that was being done by men who either did not know their business or purposely evaded their responsibilities.  “This construction of McGowan’s,” he continued, “is especially to be condemned, as there is not the slightest doubt that the contractor has intentionally slighted his work—­a neglect which, but for the thorough manner in which MacFarlane had constructed the lower culvert, might have resulted in the loss of many lives.”

McGowan snarled and sputtered, denouncing Garry and his “swallow-tails” in the bar rooms and at the board meetings, but the decision was unanimous, two of his friends concurring, fearing, as they explained afterward, that the “New York crowd” might claim even a larger sum in a suit for damages.

The meeting over, Morris and Jack dined with MacFarlane and again the distinguished architect won Ruth’s heart by the charm of his personality, she telling Jack the next day that he was the only old man—­fifty was old for Ruth—­she had ever seen with whom she could have fallen in love, and that she was not sure after all but that Jack was too young for her, at which there was a great scrimmage and a blind-man’s-buff chase around the table, up the front stairs and into the corner by the window, where she was finally caught, smothered in kisses and made to correct her arithmetic.

This ghost of damages having been laid—­it was buried the week after Jack had called on his uncle—­the Chief, the First Assistant, and Bangs, the head foreman, disappeared from Corklesville and reappeared at Morfordsburg.

The Chief came to select a site for the entrance of the shaft; the First Assistant came to compare certain maps and documents, which he had taken from the trunk he had brought with him from his Maryland home, with the archives resting in the queer old courthouse; while Foreman Bangs was to help with the level and target, should a survey be found necessary.