"Yes, this Yquem has been in our cellars since '59; so Mr. Brevoort informs me. I am extremely fortunate in having selected it since it meets with your favor!" Her tone was sweetly sincere and he was inordinately flattered. She on her part was not a little amazed at the anomaly of a mere ranch hand's knowledge of rare old vintages and looked at him with a new interest. He was surely going to be worth exploitation!
When the cloth had been removed they adjourned to a little room which had been fitted up as a den by Brevoort. Here the coffee was served, and over her cigarette she watched him deftly preparing the cognac and kirschenwasser with all the assurance of an epicure, the caraffe having been set beside him by the old servitor as a matter of course; there was no doubt now in 'Rastus's mind about this "cow-gentleman" being to the manner born.
It being an unusually mild night, the windows, which faced on the open prairie land to the north, were partly open. The air was sweet with the fragrance of the purpling lucerne, punctuated by the aroma of her Turkish tobacco. In the mellow light of the rose-tinted acetylene globe suspended overhead everything was invested with a deliciously soft warmth. Douglass, puffing luxuriously at his havana, was filled with a great conviction that he had not been so happy for years. This was what he would have when his mines were in bonanza and he had come to his own! But try as he would, he could not permanently establish Grace's presence on the divan over yonder; somehow the conditions did not lend themselves concordantly. The woman furtively watching him smiled intuitively; he was a very transparent young man, after all!
And yet how perfectly he fitted into the environment's scheme! In the soft rose light his clean-cut aquiline profile was as perfect as a well-chiseled cameo in red bronze. Vigor, strength and indomitable power breathed from every well-balanced line of his well-knit frame.
"Fit, and ready, to fight for his strong young life!" she was thinking admiringly, "a man among a thousand in these degenerate days. A 'running mate' who would go far with the wolf of his choosing. I wonder what he ever saw in that insipid goody-goody. She will tame him down to mediocrity, never realizing what she is desecrating, what she is robbing some other better-fitted woman of. She ought to have married Anselm!"
At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of lusty manliness. Now that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price! Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of sexless degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for that rose-colored globe.
"You are fond of children, Mr. Douglass?" It was more an assertion than a question. His face lit up rarely.
"I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in God's garden!"
"Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually idyllic!"
"Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly. "It was a case of love at first sight."