The president of the Northeastern dug savagely into the ground with his stick, and suddenly perceived that his daughter had her face turned away from his, towards the mountain.

“Well, I won’t bore you with that.”

She turned with a look in her eyes that bewildered him.

“You’re not—­boring me,” she said.

“I didn’t intend to go into all that,” he explained more calmly, “but the last few days have been trying, we’ve got to expect the wind to blow from all directions.”

Victoria smiled at him faintly.

“I have told you,” she said, “that what you need is a trip abroad.  Perhaps some day you will remember it.”

“Maybe I’ll go in the autumn,” he answered, smiling back at her.  “These little flurries don’t amount to anything more than mosquito-bites—­only mosquitoes are irritating.  You and I understand each other, Victoria, and now listen.  I’ll give you the broad view of this subject, the view I’ve got to take, and I’ve lived in the world and seen more of it than some folks who think they know it all.  I am virtually the trustee for thousands of stockholders, many of whom are widows and orphans.  These people are innocent; they rely on my ability, and my honesty, for their incomes.  Few men who have not had experience in railroad management know one-tenth of the difficulties and obstructions encountered by a railroad president who strives to do his duty by the road.  My business is to run the Northeastern as economically as is consistent with good service and safety, and to give the stockholders the best return for their money.  I am the steward—­and so long as I am the steward,” he exclaimed, “I’m going to do what I think is right, taking into consideration all the difficulties that confront me.”

He got up and took a turn or two on the pine-needles.  Victoria regarded him in silence.  He appeared to her at that moment the embodiment of the power he represented.  Force seemed to emanate from him, and she understood more clearly than ever how, from a poor boy on an obscure farm in Truro, he had risen to his present height.

“I don’t say the service is what it should be,” he went on, “but give me time—­give me time.  With all this prosperity in the country we can’t handle the freight.  We haven’t got cars enough, tracks enough, engines enough.  I won’t go into that with you.  But I do expect you to understand this:  that politicians are politicians; they have always been corrupt as long as I have known them, and in my opinion they always will be.  The Northeastern is the largest property holder in the State, pays the biggest tax, and has the most at stake.  The politicians could ruin us in a single session of the Legislature—­and what’s more, they would do it.  We’d have to be paying blackmail all the time to prevent measures that would compel us to go out of business.  This is a fact, and not a theory.  What little influence I exert politically I have to maintain in