On leaving her brother, Grace went straight to Mrs. Brevoort with no little embarrassment in her manner. She realized now that both she and Robert had talked a great deal about their recalcitrant manager and she was at a loss how to explain the anomalous situation. But she went the best possible way about it, straight to the point.
"I am afraid that your proposed conquest of all the cowboys on the ranch will have to be deferred in at least one particular instance, Connie," she said with a fine attempt at humorous condolence; "the most eligible one, our manager, Mr. Douglass, having severed his connection with the C Bar, so Bobbie informs me. I am genuinely sorry, for he was 'the noblest Roman of them all'!"
It was cleverly done; so cleverly, in fact, that Constance Brevoort was completely nonplused, astute as she was. Long ago she had arrived at a conclusion not borne out by the seeming indifference of her hostess, who was placidly smiling at the regal beauty in the cozy armchair before the cheerful pinon fire. Under the cover of a pretended pout she watched Grace sharply.
"I have not learned the particulars yet," continued Grace airily, "but I rather suspect that he got forewarned somehow and has beaten a masterly retreat while yet in possession of all his faculties. Seriously, dear, I am sorry that you did not meet him; he is a very attractive man and a forceful one. I am dubious of the outcome of a passage between you and him, despite your proficiency in the gentle game of hearts." She was laughing quite naturally now, if a little bitterly; there is much said in jest that is meant in earnest.
Constance somehow detected the false note but gave no sign. She looked up languidly. "Really, I am getting interested. Maybe it is only a pleasure deferred. Is he handsome, this Sir Galahad of yours?" There was a covert malice in the question that failed of its intent, for Grace said steadily:
"Not handsome in the common acceptance of the term, perhaps, but the manliest man I have ever seen."
"And you have seen so many," murmured the other comprehensively. "He interests me more than ever. Is he irrevocably lost to me?"
"That," said Grace truthfully, "I cannot say. It's a small world, you know, and strange things come to pass." She gave a little retrospective pat to the head of Buffo, lying in her lap. "And some beautiful things pass for ever." The antelope licked her cheek sympathetically as the last sentence was breathed softly in his ear. Constance Brevoort, unhearing that last piteous cry, smiled confidently.
"It will come to pass, without question. And then—who knows."
Carter entering at this juncture, the conversation was diverted to other topics. Later that night as Mrs. Brevoort divested herself of the surface paraphernalia of the sex, she smiled approvingly at the revelations of the long cheval mirror in her dressing-room.