Enderby turned out to be the owner of the voice with the English accent which Lee Virginia had heard in the hall, but he was very nice, and a moment later Mrs. Redfield entered with Mrs. Enderby, a large lady with a smiling face. Then a voice she knew spoke from behind her: “I don’t need a presentation. Miss Wetherford and I have already met.”
She turned to meet Ross Cavanagh, the young ranger.
“How did you get here?” she asked, in wonder.
“I rode across the hills; it’s not far.”
He too was in evening dress, and as she stared at him in surprise he laughingly protested. “Please don’t scrutinize this coat too closely. It’s the only one I’ve owned for ten years, and this is the only house in which I’d dare to wear it.”
Bridges (who turned out to be a State senator) was a farmer-like elderly man wearing a badly fitting serge suit. He was markedly Western; so was his wife, who looked rather uneasy and hot.
It was all delightfully exciting to Lee Virginia, and to be taken in to dinner by the transfigured ranger completed her appreciation of the charming home and its refined hostess.
Redfield shone as host, presenting an admirable mixture of clubman and Western rancher. His natural sense of humor, sharpened by twenty years of plains life, was Western. His manner, his habits of dress, of dining, of taking wine, were uncorruptedly Manhattan. Enderby, large, high-colored, was naturally a bit of what we know as the “haw-haw type” of Englishman—a thoroughly good fellow, kindly, tolerant, brave, and generous, who could not possibly change his spots. He had failed utterly to acquire the American idiom, and his attempts at cowboy slang were often amusing—especially to Redfield, who prided himself on being quite undistinguishable in a cow-camp.
Virginia and Ross, being the only young folk at the table, were seated together, and Enderby remarked privately: “Ross, you’re in luck.”
“I know I am,” he replied, heartily.