"You see there," he said,
pointing to where the wall of a new brick factory arose above the trees
that grew beside the river. "That's a new factory we're building. We're
going to make corn-cutting machines there. The old factory's already too
small. We've sold it to a new company that's going to manufacture bicycles.
Steve Hunter and I sold it. We got twice what we paid for it. When the
bicycle factory's started, he and I'll own the control in that too. I tell
you the town's on the boom."
Tom boasted of his new position in the town and Clara turned and looked
sharply at him and then looked quickly away. He was annoyed by the action
and a flush of anger came to his cheeks. A side of his character his
daughter had never seen before came to the surface. When he was a simple
farmer he had been too shrewd to attempt to play the aristocrat with his
farm hands, but often, as he went about the barns and as he drove along
country roads and saw men at work in his fields, he had felt like a prince
in the presence of his vassals. Now he talked like a prince. It was that
that had startled Clara. There was about him an indefinable air of princely
prosperity. When she turned to look at him she noticed for the first time
how much his person had also changed. Like Steve Hunter he was beginning
to grow fat. The lean hardness of his cheeks had gone, his jaws seemed
heavier, even his hands had changed their color.
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