CHAPTER XVII
Again the wide room in the Detroit House, with its windows giving on the formal garden, the group of white pines and the river. Luke Taylor sat there, his eyes fixed on the pines, listening to the deliberate, finely detailed report which his private secretary gave him. For an hour Rowe had talked, making no obvious effort to stress any one point, but watching the eyes that did not watch him, seeing the enthusiasm which had been in them give way to a cold light, watching that light grow hot, seeing the old lips work now and then; and prodding, when he knew that he had struck to the quick.
He finished and dropped the memoranda he had used to the table beside him. For an interval the old man did not move and when his position did change it was only a turn of the head to set his hard gaze on the other's face.
"You're sure of this, Rowe?"
"I've qualified everything I wasn't sure of."
"And he said that, did he? That he wanted to use my money for this—this damn moonshine?"
"Just as I've told you, sir."
"And that this was his reason: so no man could ever force her to cut until she gets good and ready?"
"Those were his words, as I remember them, sir. He said, too, that he'd rather lose his right arm than see her pine logged off."
Luke stirred and his palms tapped the arms smartly while he licked his lips.
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