You have seen the big white peaks gleam against the creeping night." It was evident that he was endeavoring to find cause for contentment with the life before him, but Ida fancied that he wished to avoid the question she had raised.
"You forget to mention the raw hands and the galled shoulders, as well as the snow-slush and the rain.

However, that's not quite the point.
As I said, all that leads to nothing.

Are you too proud to take a trifling favor because it comes through me ?" Weston met her gaze, and there was a grave forcefulness in his manner which almost astonished her.

He evidently for once had suffered his usual self-restraint to relax, and she felt it was almost a pity that he had not done so more frequently.
"Miss Stirling," he said, "you are, as it happens, one of the few people from whom I could not take a favor of that kind." She understood him, and for a moment a flicker of color crept into her cheek.

It was, she felt, a clean pride that had impelled him to the speech.