Nora understood perfectly that her brother had been forced to take a stand as a result of this last quarrel with Gertie. Well, she was glad of it. Things certainly could not go on in this way forever. Of course he would have to make a show, at least, of taking his wife's part. But, equally of course, he would understand her position perfectly. However much his new life and his long absence from England might have changed him, at bottom their points of view were still the same. He and she, so to speak, spoke a common language; she and Gertie did not.

Gertie had probably been pouring out her accumulation of grievances to him for the last half hour. Now it was her turn. She would show that she was, as always, more than ready to meet Gertie half-way. It would be his affair to see that her advances were received in better part in future than they had been.

She went on busily with her ironing, waiting for him to begin. But Eddie seemed to experience a certain embarrassment in coming to the subject. While she took article after article from the clothes-basket at her side, he wandered about the room aimlessly, puffing at a pipe which seemed never to stay lighted.

"That's the toughest nut I've ever been set to crack," he said at length, pointing his pipestem after the vanished Hornby. "Why on earth did you give him a letter to me?"

"He asked me to. I couldn't very well say no."

"I can't make out what people are up to in the old country. They think that if a man is too big a rotter to do anything at all in England, they've only got to send him out here and he'll make a fortune."

"He may improve."

"I hope so. Look here, Nora, you've thoroughly upset Gertie."

"She's very easily upset, isn't she?"

"It's only since you came that things haven't gone right. We never used to have scenes."

"So you blame me. I came prepared to like her and help her. She met all my advances with suspicion."

"She thinks yon look down on her. You ought to remember that she never had your opportunities. She's earned her own living from the time she was thirteen. You can't expect in her the refinements of a woman who's led the protected life you have."

"Now, Eddie, I haven't said a word that could be turned into the least suggestion of disapproval of anything she did."

"My dear, your whole manner has expressed disapproval. You won't do things in the way we do them. After all, the way you lived in Tunbridge Wells isn't the only way people can live. Our ways suit us, and when you live amongst us you must adopt them."

"She's never given me a chance to learn them," said Nora obstinately. "She treated me with suspicion and enmity the very first day I came here. When she sneered at me because I talked of a station instead of a depot, of course I went on talking of a station. What do you think I'm made of? Because I prefer to drink water with my meals instead of your strong tea, she says I'm putting on airs."

Marsh made a pleading gesture.

"Why can't you humor her? You see, you've got to take the blame for all the English people who came here in the past and were lazy, worthless and supercilious. They called us Colonials and turned up their noses at us. What do you expect us to do?—say, 'Thank you very much, sir.' 'We know we're not worthy to black your boots.' 'Don't bother to work, it'll be a pleasure for us to give you money'? It's no good blinking the fact. There was a great prejudice against the English. But it's giving way now, and every sensible man and woman who comes out can do something to destroy it."

"All I can say," said Nora, going over to the stove to change her iron, "is if you're tired of having me here, I can go back to Winnipeg. I shan't have any difficulty in finding something to do."

"Good Lord, I don't want you to go. I like having you here. It's—it's company for Gertie. And jobs aren't so easy to find as you think, especially now the winter's coming on; everyone wants a job in the city."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to make the best of things and meet her half-way. You must make allowances for her even if you think her unreasonable. It's Gertie you've got to spend most of your time with."

He was so manifestly distressed and, as he hadn't been so hard on her as she had expected and in her own heart felt that she deserved, Nora softened at once.

"I'll have a try."

"That's a good girl. And I think you ought to apologize to her for what you said just now."

"I?" said Nora, aflame at once. "I've got nothing to apologize for. She drove me to distraction."

There was a moment's pause while Eddie softly damned the pipe he had forgotten to fill, for not keeping lighted.

"She says she won't speak to you again unless you beg her pardon."

"Really! Does she look upon that as a great hardship?"

"My dear! We're twelve miles from the nearest store. We're thrown upon each other for the entire winter. Last year there was a bad blizzard, and we didn't see a soul outside the farm for six weeks. Unless we learn to put up with one another's whims, life becomes a perfect hell."

Nora stopped her work and set down her iron.

"You can go on talking all night, Eddie, I'll never apologize. Time after time when she sneered at me till my blood boiled, I've kept my temper. She deserved ten times more than I said. Do you think I'm going to knuckle under to a woman like that?"

"Remember she's my wife, Nora."

"Why didn't you marry a lady?"

"What the dickens do you think is the use of being a lady out here?"

"You've degenerated since you left England."

"Now look here, my dear, I'll just tell you what Gertie did for me. She was a waitress in Winnipeg at the Minnedosa Hotel, and she was making money. She knew what the life was on a farm—much harder than anything she'd been used to in the city—but she accepted all the hardship of it and the monotony of it, because—because she loved me."

"She thought it a good match. You were a gentleman."

"Fiddledidee! She had the chance of much better men than me. And when——"

"Such men as Frank Taylor, no doubt."

"And when I lost my harvest two years running, do you know what she did? She went back to the hotel in Winnipeg for the winter, so as to carry things on till the next harvest. And at the end of the winter, she gave me every cent she'd earned to pay the interest of my mortgage and the installments on the machinery."

Nora had been more moved by this recital than she would have cared to confess. She turned away her head to hide that her eyes had filled with tears. After all, a woman who could show such devotion as that, and to her brother——Yes, she would try again.

"Very well: I'll apologize. But leave me alone with her. I—I don't think I could do it even before you, Eddie."

"Fine! That's a good girl. I'll go and tell her."

Nora felt repaid in advance for any sacrifice to her pride as he beamed on her, all the look of worriment gone. She was once more busy at her ironing-board, bending low over her work to hide her confusion, when he returned with Gertie. A glance at her sister-in-law told her that there was to be no unbending in that quarter until she had made proper atonement. There was little conciliatory about that sullen face.

However, she made an effort to speak lightly until, once Eddie had taken his departure, she could make her apology.

"I've been getting on famously with the ironing."

"Have you?"

"This is one of the few things I can do all right."

"Any child can iron."

"Well, I'll be going down to the shed," said her brother uneasily.

"What for?" said Gertie quickly.

"I want to see about mending that door. It hasn't been closing right."

"I thought Nora had something to say to me."

"So she has: that's what I'm going to leaves you alone for."

"I like that. She insults me before everybody and then, when she's going to apologize, it's got to be private. No, thank you."

"What do you mean, Gertie?" asked Nora.

"You sent Ed in to tell me you was goin' to apologize for what you'd said, didn't you?"

"And I'm ready to: for peace and quietness."

"Well, what you said was before the men, and it's before the men you must say you're sorry."

"How can you ask me to do such a thing!" cried Nora indignantly.

"Don't be rough on her, Gertie," pleaded her husband. "No one likes apologizing."

"People who don't like apologizing should keep a better lookout on their tongue."

"It can't do you any good to make her eat humble pie before the men."

"Perhaps it won't do me any good, but it'll do her good!"

"Gertie, don't be cruel. I'm sorry if I lost my temper just now, and said anything that hurt you. But please don't make me humiliate myself before the others."

"I've made up my mind," said Gertie, folding her arms across her breast, "so it's no good talking."

"Don't you see that it's bad enough to have to beg your pardon before Eddie?"

"Good Lord!" said Gertie irritably, "why can't you call him Ed like the rest of us. 'Eddie' sounds so sappy."

"I've called him Eddie all my life: it's what our mother called him," said Nora sadly.

"Oh, it's all of a piece. You do everything you can to make yourself different from all of us."

She stalked over to the window and stood with folded arms looking out toward the wood-pile on which Reggie was seated—it is to be presumed having a moment's respite after his arduous labors.

"No, I don't," pleaded Nora. "At least I don't mean to. Why won't you give me any credit for trying to do my best to please you?"

"That's neither here nor there." She suddenly wheeled about, facing them both. "Go and fetch the men, Ed, and then I'll hear what she's got to say."

"No, I won't, I won't, I won't!" cried Nora furiously. "You drive me too far."

"You won't beg my pardon?" demanded Gertie threateningly. If she wished to drive Nora beside herself, she accomplished her purpose.

"I said I could teach you manners," she gave a hysterical laugh, "I made a mistake. I couldn't teach you manners, for one can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

"Shut up, Nora," said her brother sharply.

"Now you must make her, Ed," said Gertie grimly.

He replied with a despairing gesture.

"I'm sick to death of the pair of you!"

"I'm your wife, and I'm going to be mistress of this house—my house."

"It's horrible to make her eat humble pie before three strange men. You've no right to ask her to do a thing like that."

"Are you taking her part?" demanded Gertie, her voice rising in fury. "What's come over you since she came here. You're not the same to me as you used to be. Why did she come here and get between us?"

"I haven't changed."

"Haven't I been a good wife to you? Have you ever had any complaint to make of me?"

"You know perfectly well I haven't."

"As soon as your precious sister comes along, you let me be insulted. You don't say a word to defend me!"

"Darling," said her husband with grim humor, "you've said a good many to defend yourself."

But Gertie was not to be reached by humor, grim or otherwise.

"I'm sick and tired of being put upon. You must choose between us," she said, with an air of finality.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"If you don't make her apologize right now before the hired men, I'm quit of you."

"I can't make her apologize if she won't."

"Then let her quit."

"Oh, I wish I could! I wish to God I could!" said Nora wildly.

"You know she can't do that," said Marsh roughly. "There's nowhere she can go. I've offered her a home. You were quite willing, when I suggested having her here."

"I was willing because I thought she'd make herself useful. We can't afford to feed folks who don't earn their keep. We have to work for our money, we do."

"I didn't know you grudged me the little I eat," said Nora bitterly. "I wonder if I should begrudge it to you, if I were in your place."

"Look here, it's no good talking. I'm not going to turn her out. As long as she wants a home, the farm's open to her. And she's welcome to everything I've got."

"Then you choose her?" demanded Gertie.

"Choose her? I don't know what you're talking about!" Easy-going as he was, he was beginning to show signs of irritation.

"I said you'd got to choose between us. Very well, let her stay. I earned my own living before, and I can earn it again. I'm going."

"Don't talk such nonsense," said Marsh violently.

"You think I don't mean it? D'you think I'm going to stay here and be put upon? Why should I?"

"Don't you—love me any more?"

"Haven't I shown that I love you? Have you forgotten, Ed?"

"We've gone through so much together, darling," he said huskily.

"Yes, we have that," she said in a softened tone.

"Won't you forgive her, for—for my sake?"

Gertie's face hardened once more.

"No, I can't. You're a man, you don't understand. If she won't apologize, either she must go or I shall."

"I can't lose you, Gertie. What should I do without you?"

"I guess you know me well enough by now. When I say a thing, I do it."

"Eddie!"

Nora had buried her face in her hands. He looked at her a moment without speaking.

"She's my wife. After all, if it weren't for her I should be hiring out now at forty dollars a month."

Nora lifted her face. For a long moment, brother and sister exchange a sad regard.

"Very well," she said huskily, "I'll do what you want."

He made one last appeal:

"You do insist on it, Gertie?"

"Of course I do."

"I'll go and call the men." He looked vacantly about the room, searching for his hat.

"Frank Taylor needn't come, need he?" asked Nora timidly.

"Why not?"

"He's going away almost immediately. It can't matter about him, surely."

"Then why are you so particular about it?"

"The others are English——" She knew she had made an unfortunate speech the moment the words had left her lips and hastened to modify it. "He'll like to see me humiliated. He looks upon women as dirt. He's——Oh, I don't know, but not before him!"

"It'll do you a world of good to be taken down a peg or two, my lady."

"Oh, how heartless, how cruel!"

"Go on, Ed. I want to get on with my work."

"Why do you humiliate me like this?" asked Nora after the door had closed on her brother. Gertie had seated herself, very erect and judicial, in one of the rocking chairs.

"You came here and thought you knew everything, I guess. But you didn't know who you'd got to deal with."

"I was a stranger and homeless. If you'd had any kindness, you wouldn't have treated me so. I wanted to be fond of you."

"You," scoffed Gertie. "You despised me before you ever saw me."

Nora made a despairing gesture. Even now the men might be on the way, but she had a more unselfish motive for wishing to placate Gertie. Anything rather than bring that look of pain she had seen for the first time that day into her brother's eyes. She staked everything on one last appeal.

"Oh, Gertie, can't we be friends? Can't we let bygones be bygones and start afresh? We both love Eddie—Ed I mean. He's your husband and he's the only relation I have in the world. Won't you let me be a real sister to you?"

"It's rather late to say all that now."

"But it's not too late, is it?" Nora went on eagerly. "I don't know what I do that irritates you so. I can see how competent you are, and I admire you so much. I know how splendid you've been with Eddie. How you've stuck to him through thick and thin. You've done everything for him."

Gertie struck her hands violently together and sprang from her chair.

"Oh, don't go on patronizing me. I shall go crazy!"

"Patronizing you?"

"You talk to me as if I were a naughty child. You might be a school teacher." Nora wrung her hands. "It seems perfectly hopeless!"

"Even when you're begging my pardon," Gertie went on, "you put on airs. You ask me to forgive you as if you was doing me a favor!"

"I must have a most unfortunate manner." Nora laughed hysterically.

"Don't you dare laugh at me," said Gertie furiously.

"Don't make yourself ridiculous, then."

"Did you think I would ever forget what you wrote to Ed before I married him?"

"What I wrote? I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't you? You told him it would be a disgrace if he married me. He was a gentleman and I——Oh, you spread yourself out!"

"And he showed you that letter," said Nora slowly. "Now I understand," she added to herself. "Still," she went on, looking Gertie directly in the face, "I had a perfect right to try and prevent the marriage before it took place. But after it happened, I only wanted to make the best of it. If you had this grudge against me, why did you let me come here!"

"Oh," said Gertie moodily, "Ed wanted it, and it was lonely enough sometimes with the men away all day and no one to say a word to. But I can't bear it," she almost screamed, "when Ed talks to you about the old country and all the people I don't know anything about!"

"Then you are jealous?"

"It's my house and I'm mistress here. I won't be put upon. What did you want to come here for, upsetting everybody? Till you came, I never had a word with Ed. Oh, I hate you, I hate you!" she finished in a sort of ecstasy.

"Gertie!"

"You've given me my chance," said Gertie with set teeth; "I'm going to take it. I'm going to take you down a peg or two, young woman."

"You're doing all you can to drive me away from here."

"You don't think it's any very wonderful thing to have you, do you? You talk of getting a job," she went on scornfully. "You! You couldn't get one. I know something about that, my girl. You! What can you do? Nothing."

Suddenly, from outside, they heard Frank Taylor's laugh. Nora winced as if she had been struck. Gertie's face was distorted with an evil smile. She seated herself once more in the rocking chair and folded her arms across her heaving breast.

"Here they come: now take your punishment," she said harshly.