laughed and broke in with the disconcerting statement that they were
talking like a bunch of fanciers or eugenics cranks--which was
precisely what they were talking like, although they did not care to
be told so crassly.

At any rate, the simple fact that he had married a Desten made them
nod unqualified approbation when he showed them the plans and building
estimates of the Big House. Thanks to Paula Desten, for once they were
agreed that he was spending wisely and well. As for his farming, it
was incontestible that the Harvest Group was unfalteringly producing,
and he might be allowed his hobbies. Nevertheless, as Mr. Slocum put
it: "Twenty-five thousand dollars for a mere work-horse stallion is a
madness. Work-horses are work-horses; now had it been running
stock...."




CHAPTER VII



While Dick Forrest scanned the pamphlet on hog cholera issued by the
State of Iowa, through his open windows, across the wide court, began
to come sounds of the awakening of the girl who laughed from the
wooden frame by his bed and who had left on the floor of his sleeping
porch, not so many hours before, the rosy, filmy, lacy, boudoir cap so
circumspectly rescued by Oh My.

Dick heard her voice, for she awoke, like a bird, with song. He heard