"Will it bother you if I sit here a while? I won't talk if you want to think."
"It won't bother me a bit," she assured him warmly. "It is nice of you to keep me company. And I would rather talk than think."
So he put her chair at the proper angle where the street lamp revealed her clear white features, and he sat as close beside her as he dared. She did not know it, but his elbow was really on the arm of her chair instead of his own. He almost held his breath for fear a slight move would betray him. Wasn't she a wonderful girl? She turned sidewise in the chair, her head resting against the high back, and smiled at him.
"Now talk," she said. "Let us get acquainted. See if you can make me love the mountain ranges better than Chicago."
He told her of the clean sweep of the wind around his little cottage among the pines on the side of the mountain, of the wild animals that sometimes prowled his way, of the shouting of the boys on the range in the dark night, the swaying of distant lanterns, the tinkle of sheep bells. He told her of his father, of the things that he himself had once planned to be and do. He told her of his friends: of Lily, his pal, so-called because he used a safety razor every morning of his life; of Whisker, the finest dog in Colorado; of Ruby, the ruddy brown horse that would follow him miles through the mountains and always find the master at the end of the trail. And he told her it was a lonely life. And it was. Prince Ingram had lived here fourteen years, with no more consciousness of being alone than the eagle perched solitary on the mountain crags, but quite suddenly he discovered that it was lonely, and somehow the discovery took the wonder from that free glad life, and made him long for the city's bright lights, where there were others,—not just cowboys, but regular men and women.
"Yes," assented Connie rather abruptly, "I suppose it would be nice to be in a crowd of women, laughing and dancing and singing. I suppose you do miss it."
"That was not what I meant," said Prince slowly. "I don't care for a crowd of them. Not many. One is enough." He was appalled at his own audacity, and despised himself for his cowardice, for why didn't he look this white fine girl of the city in the eyes and say:
"Yes, one,—and you are it."