At any rate you are rich enough now to have no more to
do with it."
He kicked a fir cone savagely away.
"If I could," he said, "I would shut up my office to-morrow, sell
out, and live upon a farm. But I've got to keep what I've made.
The more you succeed the more involved you become. It's a sort of
slavery."
"Have you no friends?" she asked.
"I have never," he answered, "had a friend in my life."
"You have guests at any rate!"
"I sent 'em away last night!"
"What, the young lady in blue?" she asked demurely.
"Yes, and the other one too. Packed them clean off, and they're
not coming back either!"
"I am very pleased to hear it," she remarked.
"There's a man and his wife and daughter here I can't get rid of
quite so easily," he went on gloomily, "but they've got to go!"
"They would be less objectionable to the people round here who might
like to come and see you," she remarked, "than two unattached young
ladies."
"May be," he answered. "Yet I'd give a lot to be rid of them.
He had risen to his feet and was standing with his back to the
cedar-tree, looking away with fixed eyes to where the sunlight fell
upon a distant hillside gorgeous with patches and streaks of yellow
gorse and purple heather. Presently she noticed his abstraction
and looked also through the gap in the trees.
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