Mordaunt dined out each night, and was interested in meeting several of the shrewd business men who had amassed huge fortunes. He was almost tempted to invest in grain, live-stock, or lumber, but Mrs. Frampton, with a hand of iron, restrained him.
"Are you going to spend your life here?" she asked. "These men do, and know what they are about. From their cradle they have heard nothing but money talked of. They are born 'cute men of business. What do you think that pretty child of five, in the hotel, said to me yesterday, when I asked him what he meant to be when he grew up?—'I guess I'll keep a store!' I expected him to say, 'I mean to be the President,' or a general, or something. But no, he would 'keep a store!' There you are. How can you compete with such people? No. Invest in something that doesn't require your constant personal supervision, or else leave it alone."
On one of these evenings there was a dance, to which all were bidden, but only Mordaunt went. The next morning he described how he had met a charming family, who all spoke of their "factory," which, on inquiry, he learned was one of coffins! They referred in the most natural way to their industry—the father mentioning the "boom" there had been in his trade not long since, owing to the influenza; the son informing Mordaunt that he had charge of the brass-nail and plate department; the daughter, that she designed the embroidery for the palls. This cheerful conversation took place in the intervals of the merry dance and at the convivial supper-table.
"They were awfully nice," added Mordaunt, "but it sent cold water down my back to hear them talk. It sounded like ghouls, fattening on graves." Then he told them of an old man he had met, who came from a neighboring city, where he had amassed a vast fortune, and lived in great loneliness, his wife and children electing to reside in Europe. Why he had been weak enough originally to give in to this arrangement was unexplained; but there was something at once humorous and pathetic in the monody of gratified vanity and personal loneliness with which he favored the Englishman.
"I give you my word, I didn't know whether to congratulate or to condole with him," said Mordaunt, "when he told me that his only daughter was married to a French count, and that he should never see her again now—never! The tears trickled down his thin cheeks, as he said that she had forgotten all about her old home—her old father. But, in the midst of his trouble, be recovered himself. There was balm in Gilead yet. 'You know, sir, the family dates back to Charlemagne!' So it is for this that such devoted parents are content to toil and moil all their lives! By the Lord Harry! Self-sacrifice takes very funny forms sometimes!"
And Aunt Su fully agreed with him.
Having heard from Mrs. Caldwell that she awaited their arrival, they started for Denver on the fourth morning, between which city and Colorado Springs her home was situated. Two days and nights' travelling rather tried Mrs. Frampton's patience and powers of endurance, but the air, which grew keener and more elastic during the last twelve hours, as they left the plain and its vapors and damp mists, and ascended the high table-land, surrounded by snowy mountains, invigorated all the party. Mordaunt declared his aunt was the youngest of the trio when they alighted at the station, where Mrs. Caldwell's carriage awaited them. The beauty and strangeness of the scene—as they drove up a winding road, between rugged peaks of sandstone, some nearly blood-red, others milk-white, others again like amethyst, projected against the clear blue sky, and simulating the pinnacles, turrets, and spires of a castellated city—recalled the wild creations of Gustave Doré. It seemed too fantastic to be real. The very pine-trees looked tormented, springing from clefts in the rock, some erect, some twisted by the winds, but all with arms flung out over wide-mouthed chasms, where the eagles had their nests. The house stood high up on a shelf of rock, protected from the north and east winds, but open to the south. A slope of terraced garden lay below it, ending in a brook, which fell, with the noise of tumbling waters, down a cañon at the back of the house. The "Falcon's Nest," as it was called, built by the late Mr. Caldwell, was of wood, unpretentious, and in perfect taste, for its position, and the lives its inhabitants were meant to, and did actually, live. Labor and repose for some; comfort and hospitality for all who entered its broad portals, and found a pleasantly diffused but not oppressive warmth reigning through the suite of rooms panelled with pine, where plenty of books, sofas, and rocking-chairs invited the inmates to rest and be thankful.
Mrs. Caldwell and Doreen met their guests in the hall, to which the horns of buffalo and elk and some magnificent bear-skins lent a pleasant touch of savagery. Pierce Caldwell was at his office, and would not return till the evening. Alan Brown and another young man staying there were gone to skate, and after luncheon, Mordaunt, under Doreen's guidance, set off in a sleigh to join them. It was very cold, that still, dry cold of which one does not realize the intensity until one consults the thermometer; but here, with a blazing wood fire to warm one spiritually, and hot-water pipes to perform the work practically, Mrs. Frampton declared the temperature was delightful; and her critical nature was pleased with her hostess's manner.
"That is a nice woman," she said to her niece, when they were alone, later in the day. "She doesn't 'protest too much.' She is sensible, well-bred, and knows just how much to say, and what to leave unsaid. All Americans have not that tact."
"Nor all English people either. I like that little Doreen so much—she is a sweet little thing; and the son—I am sure you will fall in love with the son, aunt."