Hilda told herself that she had got over feeling bad about him; her friendship with Pearse was like a book that you shut and put away on a high shelf. She didn’t realize, herself, how many times she took that volume down and glanced into it with a good deal of regret, and that in spite of the fact that there were plenty of other volumes of the sort at hand, fairly begging her to read them.
And one experience was coming nearer, though she didn’t know it. One day of moving air and mild sun she had ridden over alone to a side cañon of the small, sluggish Juanajara River, to get resurrection plants. Her saddle-bags were full of the strange, dry-looking balls which she would later put in water and see open out green and prosperous. When she got home Tod Marchbanks met her at the corral, full of importance over his news.
“My brother Fayte’s come back from Mexico,” he announced proudly. “An’ you ought to see the things! He brought me a hair bridle, an’ Jinnie lots of beads an’ such. Maybelle, he brought her joolry—Mex’can fildygree—an’ a scrape for Ma, an’ a sombrero for Pa that’s got a gre’ big silver snake round the crown. Hurry up—supper’s most ready.”
Now for the meeting with Fayte Marchbanks! She wondered how he would carry it off! He must know what they all suspected him of back at the Sorrows. While she was slipping out of her riding habit and getting washed, she decided that the new white dress would be the one to put on. She did her hair very carefully, a little dissatisfied at its plainness, but timid of adding ornament for fear of seeming to dress up for the new arrival. Then, when she was ready and passing Mrs. Marchbanks’s door, that lady looked out and said:
“Here’s a bunch of red geranium I saved for you, Hilda. It looks so well in your black hair.”
“Oh, thank you!” Hilda nestled the fiery blooms in the dark curls just above the ear. “That’s awfully good of you.” And the two went downstairs together.
They were late. Everybody was in the dining-room. Billy Grainger and two young men from Juan Chico were at the house for supper, but the first figure that caught Hilda’s eye as she entered the room she recognized instantly. There was no great change from the defiant, outlaw personality she remembered. He got up and came straight to her and was shaking hands before the colonel said:
“Of course, you young folks know each other?”
Mrs. Marchbanks, who had been talking to her stepson of Hilda’s beauty, her many charms and many admirers, gave him a triumphant glance as she saw the surprise with which he greeted the girl. He had laughed at her talk, remembering the slim tom-boy with a dust-streaked face and stringy hair who made that wild ride and brought his father up in time to stop his rustling operations.
“You can’t fool me with that sort of talk, mamma,” he had said. “Hilda Van Brunt’s no looker. Yes, yes—I know what you say about the ranch. Pretty is as pretty has, eh? She’ll be half owner of my grandfather’s ranch—the ranch that ought to have been mine. But she sure is not pretty, whatever you say.”