"I know that what these men advise is the sensible thing to do. Almost anybody would tell you that. I'm not a business man, Puss, but I've always got on in the old days, and made the ranch go and all the people on it. I'm afraid the old days have gone. It would be the sensible thing to deal with these men. I'd get out of debt, I'd still have the homestead and some land, and I'd have some money. They are perfectly right about it. I don't suppose anybody you'd ask could give one single reason why I shouldn't do it."
"But you won't! You can't! We must find a way!" flamed Daphne.
"Why do you say that?" asked the Colonel, turning to her with a distinct lessening of his discouraged lassitude.
"It would not be the ranch any more!" she cried, passionately—"the dear old ranch! Why it would be like cutting up, destroying a loved and living thing!"
"Ah, Puss!" the Colonel exhaled a deep sigh of relief. "You understand. I thought there could not be a person in the whole wide world who would understand."
IV
Before they separated they had talked it over more calmly. The Colonel insisted that for the time being the matter should remain between themselves.
"I would a little rather you would not tell your father of this," said the Colonel. "It would only embarrass matters. He and young Boyd are in partnership, you know."
"He wouldn't be in partnership two minutes if" began Daphne, with spirit.
"I know," interposed the Colonel, gently. "That is just it. Such partnerships cannot be dissolved on the spur of the moment. The only way would be for your father to buy him out—and you know he can't do that. The arrangement must continue."
"I suppose so—it seems intolerable," agreed Daphne after a moment, and with reluctant distaste. "But I can't bear the thought of his—I won't be even decent to him."
