"I'm not quite sure I see the drift of that," he said.
"You would be content to continue a ranch-hand indefinitely?"
Laura once more looked at him with an almost disconcerting steadiness, and she had, as he was already aware, very fine eyes. She, however, noticed the suggestive delicacy of his face, which had, as it happened, more than once somewhat displeased her, and a certain languidness of expression, with which she had also grown almost impatient. This man, she had decided, was too readily acquiescent.
"That," she continued, "is rather a big question, isn't it?"
"Ah!" said Nasmyth reflectively. "Now I begin to understand. Well, I don't mind admitting that I once had ambitions and the means of gratifying them, as well as an optimistic belief in myself. That, however, was rudely shattered when the means were withdrawn, and a man very soon learns of how little account he is in Western Canada. Why shouldn't I be content to live as the ranch-hands do, especially when it's tolerably evident that I can't do anything else?"
"You are forgetting that most of them were born to it. That counts for a good deal. Have you noticed how far some of the others drift?" A faint trace of heightened colour crept into her cheeks. "Perhaps one couldn't blame them when they have once acquired the whisky habit and a Siwash wife."
Nasmyth lay very still for a few moments, resting on one elbow among the wineberries, for she had, after all, only suggested a question that had once or twice troubled him. It was, however, characteristic of him that he had temporized, and, though he knew it must be answered some day, had thrust it aside.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "you want to send me away. Now, I had almost fancied I had made things easier in various ways for you, and we have been good comrades, haven't we? One could call it that?"
"Yes," agreed Laura slowly; "I think one could call it that."
"Then," returned Nasmyth, "why do you want me to go?"
It was difficult to answer, and, to begin with, Laura did not exactly know she desired him to leave the ranch--in fact, she was willing to admit that there were several reasons why she wished him to stay. Still, perhaps because she had watched over him in his sickness, and, so Gordon said, had snatched him back to life again, she had a certain pride in him, and vaguely felt that. In one sense, he belonged to her. She would not have him throw away the life she had saved, and she had recognized, as many of his English friends had not, the perilously acquiescent side of his character. He was, she feared, one who had an unfortunate aptitude for drifting.