Meanwhile Gwyn had been feeling decidedly neglected. She had read to her mother in the garden as had become their morning custom but the older woman noted that the girl was listless and disinterested. “Ma Mere,” Gwyn had said, dropping the book to her lap, and showing by her remark that she had not been thinking of the story. “If it isn’t too late I believe I will go on that tour you were telling me about. I am desperately unhappy. Something is all wrong with me.”
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones sighed. “I am sorry, Gwyn. It is too late dear, but perhaps I will hear of another. I will make inquiries if you wish.” Then Miss Dane had come to take the invalid indoors, and Gwyn spent a lonely hour lunching by herself in the great formal dining-room.
It was in the library that Charles found her. She had been trying to read, but oh, how eagerly she glanced up when she heard his step. The lad bounded in, both hands held out. There was an expression in his fine eyes that rejoiced the girl’s heart.
“Oh, I’ve been so dismally lonely,” Gwyn said, and there were tears of self-pity on her long curling lashes.
“Poor girl I know what it is to be lonely.” Then, with one of his most winsome smiles, Charles added, “That’s why I have come back for you, Gwyn.” It was the first time he had called her that. “The others were going to the theatre. Harold’s to get a box. I couldn’t enjoy the play without you there—that is, not if you would like to go.”
Gwyn was torn between a desire to be with Charles Gale and a dread of being seen in a box with these impossible Warners. “Oh, Charles!” They were calling each other by their first names without realizing it. “I want to go with you! I am always proud of you anywhere, but—” she hesitated and looked up at him almost pleadingly, “you won’t like me when I tell you that I would be ashamed to be seen in a box—with my mother’s servants.”
Charles released her hands and walked to a window, where he stood silently looking out. “Gwyn,” he said, turning toward her, “I didn’t think I would ever meet a girl for whom I would care—really care, but I know now that I have met one, but, since she scorns farmers, I shall have to cease caring, for I by choice am, and shall remain, a farmer, or a rancher, as we are called in the Northwest.”
Gwyn’s heart beat rapidly. Was this handsome young man, who stood so proudly erect, telling her that he loved her? And in that moment she knew that she cared for him. She felt scornful of herself, for, had she not often boasted that the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco’s younger set would be the one of her choice, nor, had she any doubt but that she would also be his, and here she was silently acknowledging that she loved a mere rancher. However, it might be with her but a passing fancy. He would be gone in another week; then she would visit the city and meet men of her own class and forget. Yes, that is what she really wanted to do, forget this unsuitable attraction.
Charles broke in upon her meditations with, “Well, Gwyn, time is passing. Do you care to go to the matinee with me and occupy a box with the Warners, my sister and Harold?”
The proud girl felt that he was making this a test of whether or not she could care for him as a rancher. “No,” she heard her voice saying coldly. “I would rather be lonely than be seen in a box with those back-woodsy Warners.”