"Tell me quickly, Ralph, things are all right; they must be," she argued, her voice hoa.r.s.e, her eyes having a peculiar hard brightness unlike their usual velvety softness.

"Think I would not already have told you, Jean, if they were?" Ralph Merritt answered. "Suppose I would have spoken first of being tired, although I am tired straight through, if things had worked out as we hoped? The new mine is not worth the money it has required to buy the machinery. It is my fault. I should have known better and taken more time to consider and investigate. I was suffering from the same trouble that's taken hold of a good many young American fellows these days, trying to get rich in too great a hurry. I am sorry, chiefly for your sake, Jean dear, and the little girls, but more for you because the little girls won't mind seriously. I'll be able to make a living all right, but for a while I'm afraid not a big one, and these are hard times to make money go very far. I have an offer to go into New Mexico and look over another mine, and if it's any good I am to have the job of engineer."

Ralph was now sitting up, his look of fatigue and discouragement a little less apparent as he continued to talk. He was a splendid looking young fellow, a typical American with a fine, clear-cut face, a strong nose and a sensitive mouth. The eyes he turned toward Jean were wistful at this moment.

But Jean was white with disappointment and anger.

"The old story with you, Ralph, always something in the future, nothing for the present. I trust you are not expecting the little girls and me to go with you on your wild goose chase into New Mexico. I suppose when I tell Jim Colter and Jack that we have not a cent to live upon, they will allow us to remain at the ranch for a time anyhow. If I were only as clever as Jack perhaps I might be able to support the family without your help. I have little faith left in you."

CHAPTER VII

THE TEA PARTY

"Jack, you will try to make yourself as agreeable as possible."

Jacqueline Kent laughed: "Frieda dear, don't I always try? And is it fair of you to blame me when I am unsuccessful? But I know you want me to be as staid and well behaved this afternoon as if I were the Dowager Lady Kent, in order to conquer the reputation I seem already to have acquired in the neighorhood. Do they think me a kind of wild west show?

Well, I will make my best effort."

The motor in which Olive, Frieda and Jack were driving had by this time entered the grounds of the summer home of Senator and Mrs. Marshall. The house was a big frame building with a wide porch filled with attractive porch furniture and shaded by striped awnings of brown and yellow. The afternoon was a warm and lovely one and apparently the guests were preferring to remain out of doors, as several of them were wandering about in the yard before the house and a number were seated upon the veranda.

As the motor from the Rainbow ranch stopped, Senator Marshall himself, accompanied by Peter Stevens, came forward to greet the newcomers. He spoke cordially of his pleasure in seeing them to Frieda and Olive, but his attention was attracted by Jacqueline Ralston Kent, whom he had known as a young girl.

Senator Marshall was a middle-aged man of distinguished appearance, over six feet tall, with white hair, bright blue eyes and an aquiline nose.

Ordinarily his expression was one of good-humored tolerance. Yet Senator Marshall had the reputation for being a dangerous enemy and a man of strong will whom no one dared oppose upon a matter of importance.

Notwithstanding the fact that his wife was feared by her neighbors as a woman whose authority no one was allowed to dispute, it was said that, although her husband gave way to her in all small issues, in larger ones she was compelled to do as he wished.

To-day Jack was wearing an afternoon dress of black tulle over black silk, and a large black hat, which made her skin appear exceptionally clear and fair and her hair a deeper gold brown.

"It was kind of you to come to see us the other afternoon, Mrs.

Marshall, and I am sorry to have missed you," Jack said a little shyly a few moments later, when Senator Marshall had taken her to speak to his wife, leaving Peter Stevens to follow with Frieda and Olive. It was a misfortune from which Jacqueline Ralston had suffered as a girl and which she never had entirely conquered, that she was apt to feel less at ease with women than with men, as if they understood her less well and criticized her more severely.

Now as Mrs. Marshall returned her greeting, although perfectly polite and cordial, Jack had an instinctive impression that the older woman saw something in her which she did not like, or else had heard something previously which had prejudiced her.

"I am glad to meet you at last, Mrs. Kent. Considering the fact that you have been in the neighborhood so short a time I seem already to have _heard_ a great deal of you."

If there was no double meaning in the words which were simple in themselves, nevertheless Jack flushed slightly.

"But I am not a stranger in this neighborhood, Mrs. Marshall. I knew your husband a long time ago when my father was alive and I was a little girl trying to help manage our ranch. I don't think I forgave you for many years, Senator Marshall, because you were one of the lawyers on the other side when we had a difficulty over the boundary line of our ranch."

"No, you were quite right not to forgive me, but remember you won the case and I lost, so that should make it easier for you to forgive and forget. I am sure I shall never have the bad taste or the poor judgment to take sides against you a second time upon any subject."

Smiling, Jack glanced around her. Seated upon the porch were half a dozen or more persons whose faces were dimly familiar, some of whom she had not seen in a number of years, others fairly intimate friends, and a few complete strangers.

Leading her about the circle, Mrs. Marshall introduced her to the persons whom she had never met and Jack herself paused to shake hands and talk to the others.

There was something in her manner which the older woman observed with a sensation of envy, never having seen anyone before apparently so sincere and straightforward as Jacqueline Kent.

An hour later Jack found herself at one end of the long veranda surrounded by a group of half a dozen persons including her host.

"It is growing late, I am afraid we shall soon have to say farewell,"

Jack suggested, looking about to discover Frieda and Olive. She had done her best to make herself appear as agreeable as possible according to her sister's direction, but already she was a little tired and anxious to be back at the ranch, seldom really enjoying conventional society as she believed she should.

"But you must not think of leaving us, Mrs. Kent, until you have seen my son," Senator Marshall insisted. "He was forced to go to Laramie this afternoon upon some business for me, but I promised to keep you until his return. I suppose you don't realize that the girls in the neighborhood are already beginning to be a little jealous of you, now that you have the reputation of being the best horsewoman in the state.

I am glad you are not a young man instead of a young woman, or you might become Stevens' or my political rival some day. Do I hear correctly that you mean to resume your American nationality as soon as you can go through the necessary formalities?"

Jack nodded.

"Yes, Mr. Stevens has been helping me, telling me what I must do. Yet I think it is not gallant of you, Senator, to suggest a woman has no chance in politics in Wyoming, the first state in the Union to allow women the vote."

Senator Marshall leaned back in his chair, eyeing Jack with a smile.

"So you are thinking of playing Lady Nancy Astor in the United States?

Who knows but the idea is a good one. If the British Parliament accepted an American woman married to a British peer, I don't see why an American woman married to an Englishman, resuming her former allegiance to her own country because she loves it best, would not make a first-cla.s.s member of Congress, perhaps defeat you, Stevens."

"Why not you, Senator, if Mrs. Kent is elected to office from Wyoming?

For that matter, I do not see why she should not have the highest honor in the gift of the state."

As the two men were joking with one another, Jack rose and at the same instant saw a young man of about twenty-one coming hurriedly across the porch in their direction.

She held out her hand at once, recognizing him as John Marshall, Senator Marshall's son, although never having met him at any time.

"I am so glad you have not run away, Mrs. Kent, I want to ask you a great favor. I hear you can beat any ranchman in Wyoming swinging a la.s.so. Try it with me some day, won't you? It is great sport, but I've yet to see a girl outside the circus or a wild west show who is any good at it."

Absurd under the circ.u.mstances, yet Jack blushed furiously and then laughed:

"Am I never, never to cease to hear of my ridiculous exploit? You see, Mr. Marshall, I thought I was safe from observation that day, or perhaps it is more than probable I did not think what I was doing at all. And since that ten minutes of simply having a good time and trying to find out if I had forgotten what I learned as a girl, I have heard of little else. But you are mistaken in thinking I have any great skill with a la.s.so. I have forgotten the little skill I once possessed."

"But you will let me see you attempt it again? It is the greatest sport in the world, beats tennis or baseball, or even polo. The girls in this part of the country are either afraid or else insist la.s.soing isn't ladylike or proper, some funny nonsense! A good many of them say it was shocking of you and that no well-bred girl would ever have been alone with a lot of cowboys watching their contest, let alone taking part. But I----"

"See here, don't you think you have said enough, John?" Senator Marshall protested.

But Jack only laughed and held out her hand.

"I deserve nearly anything that may be said of me, but I thought I had come home to live in the west where one did not have to be conventional.

Apologize for me, won't you? Yes, I'll ride with you with pleasure if you don't mind my bringing Jimmie and several little girls along to act as our escort. You see, I ordinarily ride with them every afternoon. I do wish we could try the la.s.soing, but I am afraid I don't dare."

"Still, you will some day. I've an idea you would dare anything that you thought the right thing to do," John Marshall added so enthusiastically and making so little effort to conceal his admiration for Jacqueline Kent, who was several years his senior, that the group of older people about them laughed.

A few moments later, thrusting his father and Peter Stevens aside, he insisted upon seeing Jack to the motor and handed her in with amusing and most unnecessary gallantry, as she was more than able to look after herself.

Ten minutes later, leaning back in the car with her eyes closed, Jack demanded:

"Were you pleased with me this afternoon, Frieda Ralston Russell?

Goodness knows, I am tired enough with the struggle to be agreeable! I wonder why society wears me out and I can be outdoors and busy all day without fatigue."