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“So that was her father painting the Snow Bank?” I interrupted.

“Her father is dead, my dear, as you would have learned if you had listened to my story. But he lived here a good many years before he died. He had made a queer marriage, old man Decker tells me, and quarreled with the world on account of it. He came here with his disputed bride. She was somebody else’s wife first, I believe, and there was a trifling informality about the matrimonial exchange; but it came out all right. They both died, and a sweeter, fresher little thing than the daughter! Adamant, though–bed-rock, so far as we are concerned.”

“What do you want that belongs to her?” I asked. “Her island, perhaps?”

“Only right of way across it. But ‘that’s a detail.’ She is the owner of something else we do want–this piece of ground,”–he looked about him and waved his hand,–“and all this above us, where our power-plant must stand. And our business is to persuade her to sign the lease, or, if she won’t lease, to sell it when we are ready to buy. We have to make sure of that piece of ground. This place is so confoundedly cut up with scenery and nonsense, there’s not a spot available for our plant but this. We’ll bridge the lagoon and make a landing on that point of birches over there.”

“You will! And do you suppose she will sign a lease to empower you to wipe her off the face of the earth–abolish her and her pretty island at one fell swoop?”

“She knows nothing yet about our designs upon her toy island. We haven’t approached her on that. We could manage without it at a pinch.”

“So good of you!” I murmured.

“But we can’t manage without a place to put our power-house.”

“She’ll have to sign her own death-warrant, of course. If you get a footing for your power-house you’ll want the island next. I never heard of such grasping profanation.”

“Well, if Cecy could see his way to fall in love with her,–I wouldn’t ask him to woo her in cold blood,–it would be a monstrous convenient way to settle it.”

“Why do you say such things before her?” I asked Tom when we were alone. “They are not pretty things to say, in the first place.”

“Have you noticed how she is always snubbing him? I thought it time somebody should try the counter-snub. He’s not solely dependent for the joys of life on the crumbs of her society.”

“Do you suppose she cares whom he talks to, or whom he spends his time with?”

“Perhaps she doesn’t care. I should like to give her a chance to see if she cares, that’s all.”

Tom’s location notice being plain for all eyes to read, the mistress of the island naturally inquired what he wanted with the Snow Bank; and he, thinking she would see at once the value to her ranch of such a neighboring enterprise, frankly told her of his scheme. Nothing of its scientific interest, its difficulties, its commercial value, even its benefit to herself, appealed to the little islander. To her it was simply an attempt to alter and ruin the spot she loved best on earth; to steal her beautiful waterfall and carry it away in an ugly iron pipe. Whether the thing could be done, she did not ask herself; the design was enough. Never would she lend herself, or anything that was hers, to such an impious desecration! This was her position, which any child might have taken in defense of a beloved toy; but she was holding it with all a woman’s force and constancy.

I was glad of it, I said to Tom, and I hoped she would stand them off for all she was worth. But I am not really glad. What woman could love a waterfall better than her husband’s success? There are hundreds of waterfalls in the world, but only this one scheme for Tom.