He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay.
"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your expenses in Toronto or Montreal."
"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure."
She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression.
"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays you well?"
The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had treated her generously in comparison with his means, which, after all, were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand.
"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on that visit to Toronto?"
The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him small cause for suspecting anything of the kind.
"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole situation.
"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed.
"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties."
"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district generally!"
"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please you--and done it willingly. Still, there are these others--I owe them something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try."