ied your importance, that I looked at you through the wrong end of
the telescope; and along with my apathy is a feeling of dismay that I
have spent all these years working to retaliate upon foes that are not
worth what it has cost. The worst thing one could wish you is to be
yourselves, for there isn't one among you who has the qualities to lift
him above his present level of mediocrity."

A resentful movement to go was initiated by Gov'nor Sudds.

"Wait a moment!" Kate raised her hand imperiously. "I presume you think
you have your answer?" She shook her head slowly. Then, with increased
deliberation: "I told you that I always pay my debts. I owe my success
to you. It is my enemies who have given me the patience to sit hour
after hour and herd sheep--not for weeks nor months, but for years. It
is my enemies who have given me the courage to stagger on through cold
and snow when the blood in my veins was ice. It is my enemies who have
given me the endurance to work in emergencies until I have dropped; to
endure poverty, loneliness, derision--and worse. When failures have
knocked me down, it is you, my enemies, who have given me the strength
to pick myself up and go on.

"Because of you, I am the better able to appreciate true friendship,
integrity, the many qualities which go to make up greatness of mind and
heart, and that in happier circumstances I have learned do exist. So you
see, if you have taken much, perhaps you have given more, and I have an
obligation to discharge. Therefore," she turned to her father with a
slightly inquiring look, "if the decision still remains with me, I
should like to know that the project will go through."

The tense and pent-up feelings of the guests found an outlet in
long-drawn breaths and indignant but unconvincing murmurs that "they'd
rather starve," which did not prevent all attention focusing upon
Prentiss, whose face wore a forbidding grimness from which all semblance
of friendliness had long since fled.

"If I had known--if I had dreamed of half of this--I am frank to confess
that you could not have interested me in this proposition for the
hundredth part of a second. But it will be completed because it is my
daughter's wish. However," with cold emphasis, "upon my own terms.

"You may, or may not know, that the involved affairs of the project
leave it practically optional with a new company whether they recognize
the claims against former companies or repudiate these debts.