Page:Garman and Worse.djvu/272

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270
Garman and Worse.

and somewhat prejudiced man. It was just these very modern ideas that you find so attractive, which were to him strange or even positively distasteful." She made this remark more for the purpose of drawing out Worse than because she wished to disparage her father.

"Consul Garman," said Worse, rising from his chair, "was a dissatisfied man. His whole life was an ill—concealed struggle between the old and the new. He placed extraordinary confidence in me, and I found in him ideas, which no one would have expected to meet with in such a precise and old-fashioned man of business. But to reconcile the two incongruous currents was beyond his power; the immature and impetuous want of exactitude of modern times was repugnant to his nature; and when his great sense of justice forced him to recognize certain fundamental truths, it was still always a source of annoyance to him to be obliged to do so. It appears to me that he sought a counteracting influence to all this, in his boundless admiration for old Consul Garman."

"But was not my grandfather a remarkable man? Don't you think so?" asked Rachel, with interest.

"I will tell you my opinion, Miss Garman. He was a man who lived in a time to which he was suited, and in which, on the whole, existence was far more easy."

"You mean to say, then, that existence was easier in those times than in the present?"

"Yes, I am sure of it," continued Worse, pacing hurriedly up and down the room, as was his custom