THE ORIENTAL WAY OF IT

Orlando Guise's mother was lacking in the caution which mothers generally
have where their men-children are concerned. If she had had sense, she
would have insisted on removing Orlando to Slow Down Ranch at the
earliest possible moment, even at some risk to his physical well-being.
She ought to have seen that Joel Mazarine was possessed of a jealousy as
unreasoning as that of an animal; she ought to have discouraged Louise's
kindnesses. If the kindnesses had been only the ordinary acts of a
mistress of a house to a guest who had saved her husband's life--dishes
made by her own hand, strengthening drinks, flowers picked and arranged
by herself--there could have been no cause for nervousness. Each thing
done by Louise, however, came from a personally and emotionally
solicitous interest. It was to be seen in the glance of the eye, in the
voice a little unsteady, in girlish over-emphasis, in that shining
something in the face, which, in Ireland, they call the love-light.

So great was Mrs. Guise's vanity, so intense her content in her son, so
proud was she of other people's admiration of him, no matter who they
were, that she welcomed Louise's attentions. Kernaghan was wrong.
Mazarine had not forbidden Louise to enter Orlando's room. That was the
contradictory nature of the man. His innate savagery made him brood
wickedly over her natural housewifery attentions to the man who had
probably saved his own life, and certainly had saved him six thousand
dollars; yet it was as though he must see the worst that might happen,
must even encourage a danger which he dreaded. When the Methodist
minister from Askatoon came to offer prayer for Orlando, Joel joined in
it with all the unction of a class-leader, while every word of the prayer
trembled in an atmosphere of hatred. As Patsy Kernaghan said, he himself