``Don't lay it on too thick,'' laughed she.
He understood why she was laughing, though he did not show it.
He knew what his much-traveled daughter thought of Remsen City,
but he held to his own provincial opinion, nevertheless. Nor,
perhaps, was he so far wrong as she believed. A cross section of
human society, taken almost anywhere, will reveal about the same
quantity of brain, and the quality of the mill is the thing, not
of the material it may happen to be grinding.
She understood that his remark was his way of letting her know
that he had taken her suggestion under advisement. This meant
that she had said enough. And Jane Hastings had made herself an
adept in the art of handling her father--an accomplishment she
could by no means have achieved had she not loved him; it is only
when a woman deeply and strongly loves a man that she can learn
to influence him, for only love can put the necessary
sensitiveness into the nerves with which moods and prejudices and
whims and such subtle uncertainties can be felt out.
The next day but one, coming out on the front veranda a few
minutes before lunch time she was startled rather than surprised
to see Victor Dorn seated on a wicker sofa, hat off and gaze
wandering delightedly over the extensive view of the beautiful
farming country round Remsen City. She paused in the doorway to
take advantage of the chance to look at him when he was off his
guard. Certainly that profile view of the young man was
impressive.
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