"You will be the talk of the countryside, Jacqueline Kent, and who knows where else?" Jim Colter answered. "It's incredible that you did not realize this. In less than an hour it will be on every tongue that Lady Kent has returned to Wyoming to seek the society of the cowboys and ranchmen and to engage in their rough sports, and please remember it also will be reported that she seeks their companionship with no other women present. Fine beginning, Jack."

"You are pretty hateful, Jim. I thought you used to tell me not to mind idle gossip."

"I did, Jack, but not when the gossip was justified by your behavior. As for my keeping your recent act a secret from the rest of the family, it is not possible. Frieda and Professor Russell, Olive and Captain MacDonnell, and your former acquaintance, Peter Stevens, are in the motor car waiting for you, unfortunately so near as to be aware of your proceedings. We motored over to Laramie this afternoon and asked Stevens if he knew what steps you should take in order to resume your American citizenship. He was not altogether sure and explained he thought it would be wiser to look the question up. As he was free for the evening Frieda invited him to motor to the ranch with us and meet you again.

Finding you had gone down to the ranch house, we went in search of you.

Ching Lee, who is the present cook at the ranch house, informed me you had ridden over here with Simmons, which was in itself sufficiently unconventional, Jack, without the unexpected addition I saw when I left the motor and came to look for you."

"Good gracious, Frieda will never let me hear the last of this!" Jack exclaimed. "It is rather too much to have an old acquaintance like Peter Stevens, who never liked or approved of me even in my youth, as another witness to my discomfiture. Perhaps you would prefer I return to England after all, Jim! Can't you forgive me before I join the others; I'll have sufficient disapproval to endure then without yours. I wonder if I dare face Frieda. I'll never make a mistake like this again."

But for once Jim Colter refused to yield to Jack's pleading, being more deeply disturbed by her action because of its consequent reaction upon her than he had been in some time past. Beautiful, young and daring, with unusual wealth, perhaps it might be wiser if Jack should marry again, hard as it would be for him to give her up a second time.

CHAPTER IV

A FORMER ACQUAINTANCE

"I was never so ashamed of any one in my life."

Jack flushed, but, ignoring her sister's speech, extended her hand to the young man who was seated in the motor car beside her.

"I am afraid you don't remember me," she began, "it has been a long time, and we never knew each other intimately in the past. But it is kind of you to have driven over to the ranch."

Then getting into the car, Jack sat down in the vacant place which had been saved for her between her sister and their visitor.

"Just the same, I believe I should have known you," Peter Stevens returned, looking at her with what Jack considered was certainly not an expression of admiration. "Do you think, Mrs. Kent, a fellow is apt to forget a girl who could ride and hunt and shoot better than nearly any young man in Wyoming? I was a bookworm in those days and have remained one, but that did not prevent my jealousy of you."

"Please don't refer to my dreadful outdoor accomplishments," Jack murmured, "not after I have gotten myself into such disfavor with my family." The little glance, half of appeal, half of humor which she at this instant bestowed upon her companion made the muscles of his face suddenly relax and his blue eyes less cold, so that Jack caught at least a fleeting likeness to the boy she had once known.

As a matter of fact, Peter Stevens, who was still in the early twenties, had appeared so much older than she had dreamed possible that Jack would not have recognized him without first having been told his name.

Then his face hardened again.

"Well, most of us grow up, Mrs. Kent, but perhaps you are one of the persons who do not. I am told you prefer not to use your t.i.tle in the United States."

To Jack's mind, as there was plainly no answer to this speech with its scarcely courteous reference to her recent impulsive action, she turned toward her sister.

Frieda Ralston had developed into the type of matron one might have expected from her spoiled girlhood and--more important--her childish and self-satisfied temperament. She dearly loved her older sister; except for her husband and baby, she loved no one so well; but she also loved the opportunity to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of offended dignity which usually had succeeded in making the members of her family do as she wished.

Moreover her sister's recent escapade had seriously shocked and annoyed her, not for her own sake, but for her sister's. She had wished Jack to make a charming impression among their neighbors and old friends. No one, as she believed, could be handsomer or more delightful than her sister, Lady Kent, and Frieda declined to lay aside the t.i.tle. Yet here was Jack, after having probably disgraced herself by her latest performance, meeting one of the most prominent of the younger men in Wyoming, dressed in an old, discarded riding habit, dusty, her hair blown about her face, looking at least ten years younger than she actually was; in fact, as if she had never left the ranch, never been married or seen anything of the outside world.

As a matter of fact, Frieda now and then felt slightly resentful of the suggestion, occasionally made by strangers, that she was the older of the two sisters. But this Frieda thought must be because she was getting just the tiniest bit stouter than she would have preferred to be.

However, she did not care seriously. This afternoon, as Jack tried to catch her sister's eye, she thought that Frieda looked prettier than usual, in her beautifully made blue cloth tailor suit and the little blue feather hat which made her eyes appear even bluer and the fairness of her skin more conspicuous.

She also considered that Frieda was partly justified in her anger, but that she must not be allowed to display her temper or to lecture her older sister before a stranger.

The next instant, leaning over, Jack whispered a few words to Olive MacDonnell, who with her husband, Captain MacDonnell, was occupying the seat in front of her own. Professor Henry Tilford Russell, Frieda's husband, was next to Jim Colter, who was driving the car.

What Jack whispered was:

"You'll stand by me, Olive, you and Bryan; as usual, I seem to have gotten into more troubled waters than I realized."

And Olive had nodded with the sympathy and understanding which Jack had always been able to count upon from the days of their earliest acquaintance when Olive had taken refuge at the Rainbow lodge and Jacqueline Ralston had sheltered and protected her.

The following moment Jack stretched out her arms toward Frieda's little girl, who was sitting in her mother's lap.

"Let me hold the baby, please, Frieda dear, you must both be tired."

Then as Peace climbed over into her aunt's lap, Jack pressed her cheek for an instant against the little girl's head.

She and Peace had a deep affection and understanding of each other. But then the child was captivating to everybody. Inheriting Frieda's exquisite blonde coloring, Peace had a spirituality her mother never possessed. She was several years old, but so frail that she seemed younger in spite of her wise, old-fashioned conversation.

"Tired?" she murmured.

Jack shook her head.

"There is nothing the matter." It often troubled her and Frieda, the little girl's curious knowledge of what was going on in the minds of the people about her without an exchange of words.

Frieda now glanced at her sister and her own little girl and her expression altered. She loved seeing them together and had no feeling of jealousy. Indeed she used to hope that some of Jack's vigor, the extraordinary and beautiful vitality which made her different from other persons might be transferred to her own little girl.

"We will leave you at the lodge, Jack, to dress for dinner, if you will come up to the big house later;" Frieda remarked with a change of tone.

"Mr. Stevens has been kind enough to say he will remain all night and motor back to Laramie in the morning."

Was it natural vanity on Jacqueline Ralston's part or an effort to reinstate herself in the good graces of her family that she bathed and dressed with unusual care, brushing every particle of dust from her long, heavy, gold brown hair which waved from her temples to the low coil which she wore at the back of her neck?

Jack's evening dress was black chiffon without an ornament or jewel and was the first change she had made from her mourning. To any one less physically perfect than Jacqueline Kent, the severity of the dress might have been trying. But her skin was clear, her color, without being vivid, gave a sufficient flush to her cheeks, her lips were a deep red, her eyes gray and wide and with a singular sincerity. Moreover, Jack's outdoor tastes, into whatever indiscretions they might lead her, had kept her figure erect, beautifully modeled and well poised, and a beautiful figure is far more rare than a beautiful face.

Walking up with Jimmie as her escort to the big house, Jack confessed to herself that she felt slightly bored. Unexpectedly she had grown a little tired, or if not tired, not in the mood to endure any more family criticism at the present time, and would much have preferred spending the evening alone with her son.

She had confessed her offence to Jimmie, wishing him to hear from her what she had done. But Jimmie, not appreciating the social error she had committed, had appeared immensely proud, even jealous of her prowess, insisting that she should begin to give him lessons in the art of la.s.soing early the following morning.

Personally Jack wondered just to what extent her family had been unnecessarily critical in their att.i.tude. Would her neighbors judge her action so harshly that it would interfere with their friendliness toward her? It was always hard for Jack to live in an atmosphere of unfriendliness.

So far as her former acquaintance was concerned she had no vestige of doubt. Peter Stevens had been absurdly shocked and offended by her exhibition of what had seemed to him unwomanliness. But personally Jack did not care a great deal for his opinion, she had not liked him particularly, and it had occurred to her that it might be just as well if he were shocked occasionally. He looked prim and too much an old bachelor for so comparatively young a man.

However, what really startled Peter Stevens was Jacqueline Kent's appearance, when he came into the drawing room a few moments before dinner and found her standing alone before a small fire.

He controlled with difficulty an exclamation of surprise, having not thought her even handsome earlier in the afternoon. And he had disapproved of her action more keenly than he believed himself to have revealed. Now as Jack began talking to him he appreciated not only her beauty, but the fact that she had become a charming woman of the world and probably had seen more of life than he had seen in spite of his success in his profession and his political ambitions.

"You are a Republican, aren't you?" Jack asked, and then added: "I believe you have been elected a member of the State Legislature in Wyoming and the people are talking about you for one of our United States Congressmen. Politics seem to me a great career, perhaps the greatest of all careers, these days, so may I congratulate you?"

Peter Stevens smiled, pleased of course, as any one might have been.

"Perhaps it is a bit premature to talk of my running for Congress, Mrs.

Kent, but if I do may I count on your support?"

Laughing, Jack shook her head.