I'm terribly sorry."
"I loathe it--and I cannot leave it," she burst out vehemently. "I'm
chained to my degradation. I dream dreams, and they'll never come
true. I--I--oh Mr. Bryce, Mr. Bryce, I'm so unhappy."
"So am I," he retorted. "We all get our dose of it, you know, and
just at present I'm having an extra helping, it seems. You're cursed
with too much imagination, Moira. I'm sorry about your father. He's
been with us a long time, and my father has borne a lot from him for
old sake's sake; he told me the other night that he has discharged
Mac fourteen times during the past ten years, but to date he hasn't
been able to make it stick. For all his sixty years, Moira, your
confounded parent can still manhandle any man on the pay-roll, and as
fast as Dad put in a new woods-boss old Mac drove him off the job. He
simply declines to be fired, and Dad's worn out and too tired to
bother about his old woods-boss any more. He's been waiting until I
should get back."
"I know," said Moira wearily. "Nobody wants to be Cardigan's woods-
boss and have to fight my father to hold his job. I realize what a
nuisance he has become."
Bryce chuckled. "I asked Father why he didn't stand pat and let Mac
work for nothing; having discharged him, my father was under no
obligation to give him his salary just because he insisted on being
woods-boss.
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