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Elvine and her mother possessed far too much in common ever to have sympathy for one another. It was this very attitude which inspired an acrimonious half hour in the somewhat pretentious parlor on Maple Avenue just before Jeff was to pay his farewell call at the close of the Cattle Week. Elvine was occupied with a small note-book on the| pages of which there were many figures.
She saw nothing, knew nothing but the trouble which had robbed her of all she lived for. Then came the inevitable. Her tears eventually relaxed the tension of her nerves, and, after several ineffectual attempts to keep them open, the weight of the atmosphere closed her eyes and yielded her the final mercy of sleep. Elvine awoke with a start.
There was a general stir everywhere. Certain stock was being corralled and hayed for the night. In the hay corral men were busy cutting and hauling feed. There was no loneliness, no solitude. The business of so great an enterprise as the Obar Ranch involved many hands, and seemingly endless work. But Elvine watched these things without interest.
For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful about Elvine's surroundings. The daughter would never have permitted such a thing. It was only modern, extremely modern. That type of modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful consideration. At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large pocketbook which was lying in her lap.
But the Basins, though so low, were modest. "Can't one of the Basins start, 'He will carry you through'?" said the enduring Brother Skates; "where is Vesty?" "She 's a-helpin' Elvine with her baby," came now a prompt and ready reply: "she said she'd come along for social meetin', after you'd had Sunday-school, ef she could." "How is Elvine's baby?" spoke up another voice.
Could there be any mistaking those cold tones, that ruthless decision? From slightly behind him Elvine had stood watching with straining eyes the still figure, speaking with so obvious a repression of feeling, his eyes steadily fixed upon the distant horizon. Once or twice an ominous flush had suddenly flamed up in her eyes. A deep flush had stained her cheeks.
But even as he spoke a change in his expression came when he recognized the horse Elvine was riding. Suddenly he raised one hand and smoothed the tangle of moustache with a downward gesture. It was a gesture implying complete lack of comprehension. "Well, I'm darned!" "You'll be more than that if you don't pass on to your work, whatever that may be."
"We are now open for remarks," intimated Elder Skates feebly, afflicted but firm in his rubber boots. After a season of respectful silence within the school-house there was a sepulchral whisper from one elderly female to another on the back seats: "Did ye know 't Elvine had plucked her geese?" "Sartin.
This was the shrine of the goddess whom he had set up for his own worship. Again there was no half measure. They were talking in that intimate fashion which belongs to the period when a man and a woman have made up their minds that there remains no obstacle to the admission of mutual regard. "It's just wonderful to have done it all in so short a time," Elvine said in her low even tones.
The man hesitated as though waiting for her to depart first, but as she made no movement, and offered no further word, he was forced to the initiative. With an astonishing deference, which, perhaps, was even too elaborate, he wheeled his horse about and rode off. Elvine watched him until he was swallowed up by the narrow pathway between the bluffs, then she turned back and rode slowly homeward.
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