He gripped the Captain fiercely with his knees. He told himself, in an attempt to be sane, that this discomfiture was merely because he had been out of the sight of women so long.

They rode into the Thorpe ranch after dark. Lights shone from the windows, and Jed, knowing the place, declared that they were eating.

"h.e.l.lo, Bob!" he cried when Thorpe himself threw the door open. "Keep a couple of stoppers to-night?"

"Well, Jed, you're a rough-looking old rascal; but I s'pose we'll have to take you in. Who else--that young animal-tamer, VB?"

"Right!" laughed Jed.

VB, peering into the lighted room, saw a figure jump up from the table and hurry toward the door.

As it came between him and the light it seemed to be crowned with a halo, a radiant, shimmering, golden aura.

Then her voice called in welcome: "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Avery!" Before Jed could make answer she had gone on, as though ignoring him. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. VB!

Aren't you coming in to shake hands?"

VB wanted to laugh, like a boy with a new gun; his spirits bubbled up into his throat and twisted into laughter any words that might have formed, but he managed to answer:

"I'll feed the Captain--then I'll be in."

Without a word she turned back.

Long ago--years ago, it seemed--he had drawn away from her to go to the Captain; then it was the love of the horse that took him. Now, however, it was nothing but confusion that drove him away. Not that he held the Captain less dear, but he wanted to put off that meeting with Gail, to delay until he could overcome that silly disorganization of his powers of self-control.

Out in the corral he flung his arms about the black's head and laughed happily into the soft neck.

"VB, you're a fool--a silly fool!" he whispered.

But if it was so, if being a fool made him that happy, he never wanted to regain mental balance.

It was a big evening for VB, perhaps the biggest of his life. Bob Thorpe and his family ate with the men. Democracy unalloyed was in his soul. He mingled with them not through condescension, but through desire, and his family maintained the same bearing. Not a cow-puncher in the country but who respected Mrs. Thorpe and Gail and would welcome an opportunity to fight for them.

The men had finished their meal before VB and Jed entered. Mrs. Thorpe made excuses and went out, leaving the four alone. While Jed talked to her father, Gail, elbows on the table, chatted with VB, and Young VB could only stare at his plate and s.n.a.t.c.h a glance at her occasionally and wonder why it was that she so disturbed him.

Later Bob took Jed into his office, and when Gail and VB were left alone the constraint between them became even more painful. Try as he would, the man could not bring his scattered wits together for coherent speech. Just being beside that girl after her long absence was intoxicating, benumbing his mind, stifling in him all thought and action, creating a thralldom which was at once agony and peace. An intuitive sensing of this helplessness had made him delay seeing her that evening; now that he was before her he never wanted to leave; he wanted only to sit and listen to her voice and watch the alert expressiveness of her face--a mute, humble worshiper.

And this att.i.tude of his forced a reaction on the girl. At first she talked vivaciously, starting each new subject with an enthusiasm that seemed bound to draw him out, but when he remained dumb and helpless in spite of her best efforts to keep the conversation going, her flow of words lagged. Long, wordless intervals followed, and a flush came into the girl's cheeks, and she too found herself woefully self-conscious.

She sought for the refuge of diversion.

"Since you won't talk to me, Mr. VB," she said with an embarra.s.sed laugh, "you are going to force me to play for you."

"It isn't that I won't--I _can't_," he stammered. "And please play."

He sat back in his chair, relieved, and watched the fine sway of her body as she made the big full-toned instrument give up its soul. Music, that--not the tunes that most girls of his acquaintance had played for him; a St. Saens arrangement, a MacDowell sketch, a bit of Nevin, running from one theme into another, easily, naturally, grace everywhere, from the phrasing to the movements of her firm little shoulders. And VB found his self-possession returning, found that he was thinking evenly, sanely, under the quieting influence of this music.

Then Gail paused, sitting silent before the keyboard, as though to herald a coming climax. She leaned closer over the instrument and struck into the somber strains of a composition of such grim power and beauty that it seemed to create for itself an oddly receptive att.i.tude in the man, sensitizing his emotional nature to a point where its finest shades were brought out in detail. It went on and on through its various phases to the end, and on the heavy final chord the girl's hands dropped into her lap. For a moment she sat still bent toward the keyboard before turning to him. When she did face about her flush was gone. She was again mistress of the situation and said:

"Well, are you ever going to tell me about yourself?"

VB's brows were drawn, and his eyes closed, but before he opened them to look at her a peculiar smile came over his face.

"That man Chopin, and his five-flat prelude--" he said, and stirred with a helpless little gesture of one hand as though no words could convey the appreciation he felt.

"I wonder if you like that as well as I do?" she asked.

He sat forward in his chair and looked hard at her. The constraint was wholly gone; he was seriously intent, thinking clearing, steadily now.

"I used to hear it many times," he said slowly, "and each time I've heard it, it has meant more to me. There's something about it, deep down, covered up by all those big tones, that I never could understand--until now. I guess," he faltered, "I guess I've never realized how much a man has to suffer before he can do a big thing like that. Something about this,"--with a gesture of his one hand,--"this house and these hills, and what I've been through out here, and the way you play, helps me to understand what an accomplishment like that must have cost."

She looked at him out of the blue eyes that had become so grave, and said:

"I guess we all have to suffer to do big things; but did you ever think how much we have to suffer to appreciate big things?"

And she went on talking in this strain with a low, even voice, talking for hours, it seemed, while VB listened and wondered at her breadth of view, her sympathy and understanding.

She was no longer a little, sunny-haired girl, a bit of pretty down floating along through life. Before, he had looked on her as such; true, he had known her as sympathetic, balanced, with a keen appreciation of values. But her look, her tone, her insight into somber, grim truths came out with emphasis in the atmosphere created by that music, and to Young VB, Gail Thorpe had become a woman.

A silence came, and they sat through it with that ease which comes only to those who are in harmony. No constraint now, no flushed faces, no awkward meeting of eyes. The new understanding which had come made even silence eloquent and satisfying.

Then the talk commenced, slowly at first, gradually quickening. It was of many things--of her winter, of her days in the East, of her friends.

And through it Gail took the lead, talking as few women had ever talked to him before; talking of personalities, yet deviating from them to deduce a principle here, apply a maxim there, and always showing her humanness by building the points about individuals and the circ.u.mstances which surround them.

"Don't you ever get lonely here?" he asked abruptly, thinking that she must have moments of discontent in these mountains and with these people.

"No. Why should I?"

"Well, you've been used to things of a different sort. It seems to be a little rough for a girl--like you."

"And why shouldn't a nicer community be too fine for a girl like me?"

she countered. "I'm of this country, you know. It's mine."

"I hadn't thought of that. You're different from these people, and yet," he went on, "you're not like most women outside, either. You've seemed to combine the best of the two extremes. You--"

He looked up to see her gazing at him with a light of triumph in her face. VB never knew, but it was that hour for which she had waited months, ever since the time when she declared to her father, with a welling admiration for the spirit he must have, that he who broke the Captain was a _man_.

Here he was before her, talking personalities, a.n.a.lyzing her! Four months before he would not even linger to say good-by! Surely the spell of her womanhood was on him.

"Oh!" she cried, bringing her hands together. "So you've been thinking about me--what sort of a girl I am, have you?"

Her eyes were aflame with the light of conquest.

Then she said soberly: "Well, it's nice to have people taking you seriously, anyhow."

"That's all any of us want," he answered her; "to be taken seriously, and to be worthy of commanding such an att.i.tude from the people about us. Sometimes we don't realize it until we've thrown away our best chances and then--well, maybe it's too late."

On the words he felt a sudden misgiving, a sudden waning of faith. And, bringing confusion to his ears, was the low voice of this girl-woman saying: "I understand, VB, I understand. And it's never too late to mend!"

Her hand lay in her lap, and almost unconsciously he reached out for it. It came to meet his, frankly, quickly, and his frame was racked by a great, dry sob which came from the depths of his soul.