The girl ignored this Job’s comforting.

“What shall I say to my father?” she asked directly.  “Tell him you kept the foolish letters written you by an ignorant child—­and the price is either his or my selling out to Mr. Inglesby?”

“That is your lookout.  You can’t expect us to let your side whip us, hands down, can you?  Mr. Inglesby does not propose to submit tamely to everything.”  His face hardened, a glacial glint snapped into his eyes.  “Inglesby’s no worse than anybody else would be that had to hold down his job.  He’s got virtues, plenty of solid good-citizen, church-member, father-of-a-family virtues, little as you seem to realize it.  Also, let me repeat—­he has twenty millions.  To buy up a handful of letters for twenty million dollars looks to me about the biggest price ever paid since the world began.  Don’t be a fool!”

“I refuse.  I refuse absolutely and unconditionally.  I shall immediately send for my father—­and for Mr. Mayne—­”

“I give you credit for better sense,” said he, with a razor-edged smile.  “Eustis is honorable and Mayne is in love with you, and when you spring this they’ll swear they believe you:  but will they?  Do men ever believe women, without the leaven of a little doubt?  Speaking as a man for men, I wouldn’t put them to the test.  No, dear lady, I hardly think you are going to be so silly.  Now let us pass on to something of greater moment than the letters.  Did you think I had nothing else to urge upon you?”

“What, more?” said she, derisively.  “I don’t think I understand.”

“I am sure you don’t.  Permit me, then, to enlighten you.”  He paused a moment, as if to reflect.  Then, impressively: 

“Hitherto, Miss Eustis, you have had the very button on Fortune’s cap,” he told her.  “Suppose, however, that fickle goddess chose to whisk herself off bodily, and left you—­you, mind you! to face the ugly realities of poverty, and poverty under a cloud?” And while she stared at him blankly, he asked:  “What do you know of your father’s affairs?”

As a matter of fact she knew very little.  But something in the deadly pleasantness of his voice, something in his eyes, startled her.

“What do you mean, Mr. Hunter?”

“Ah, now we get down to bedrock:  your father’s affairs,” he said evenly.  “Your father, Miss Eustis, is a very remarkable man, a man with one idea.  In other words, a fanatic.  Only a fanatic could accomplish what Eustis has accomplished.  His one idea is the very sound old idea that people should remain on the land.  He starts in to show his people how to do it successfully.  Once started, the work grows like Jonah’s gourd.  He becomes a sort of rural white hope.  So far, so good.  But reclamation work, experimenting, blooded stock, up-to-the-minute machinery, labor-saving devices, chemicals, high-priced experts, labor itself, all that calls for money, plenty of money.  Your father’s work grew to its monumental proportions because he’d gotten other men interested in it—­all sorts and conditions of men, but chiefly—­and here’s at once his strength and weakness—­farmers, planters, small-town merchants and bankers.  They backed him with everything they had—­and they haven’t lost—­yet.