He fixed another penetrating look upon her face, and his voice was vibrant with anxiety as he said: “You don’t think there’s anything—wrong?”
“No, nothing wrong; but she’s profoundly in love with him. I never have seen her so wrapped up in any one. She thinks of nothing else. It scares me to see it, for I’ve studied him closely and I can’t believe he feels the same toward her. His world is so different from ours. I don’t know what to do or say. I fear she is in for a period of great unhappiness.”
She was at the beginning of tears, and he sought to comfort her. “Don’t worry, honey, she’s got too much horse sense to do anything foolish. She’s grown up. I suppose it’s his being so different from the other boys that catches her. We’ve always been good chums—let me talk with her. She mustn’t make a mistake.”
The return of the crew from the corral cut short this conference, and when McFarlane went in Berrie greeted him with such frank and joyous expression that all his fears vanished.
“Did you come over the high trail?” she asked.
“No, I came your way. I didn’t want to take any chances on getting mired. It’s still raining up there,” he answered, then turned to Wayland: “Here’s your mail, Norcross, a whole hatful of it—and one telegram in the bunch. Hope it isn’t serious.”
Wayland took the bundle of letters and retired to his room, glad to escape the persistent stare of the cow-hands. The despatch was from his father, and was curt and specific as a command: “Shall be in Denver on the 23d, meet me at the Palmer House. Am on my way to California. Come prepared to join me on the trip.”
With the letters unopened in his lap he sat in silent thought, profoundly troubled by the instant decision which this message demanded of him. At first glance nothing was simpler than to pack up and go. He was only a tourist in the valley with no intention of staying; but there was Berea! To go meant a violent end of their pleasant romance. To think of flight saddened him, and yet his better judgment was clearly on the side of going. “Much as I like her, much as I admire her, I cannot marry her. The simplest way is to frankly tell her so and go. It seems cowardly, but in the end she will be happier.”
His letters carried him back into his own world. One was from Will Halliday, who was going with Professor Holsman on an exploring trip up the Nile. “You must join us. Holsman has promised to take you on.” Another classmate wrote to know if he did not want to go into a land deal on the Gulf of Mexico. A girl asked: “Are you to be in New York this winter? I am. I’ve decided to go into this Suffrage Movement.” And so, one by one, the threads which bound him to Eastern city life re-spun their filaments. After all, this Colorado outing, even though it should last two years, would only be a vacation—his real life was in the cities of the East. Charming as Berea was, potent as she seemed, she was after all a fixed part of the mountain land, and not to be taken from it. At the moment marriage with her appeared absurd.
A knock at his door and the Supervisor’s voice gave him a keen shock. “Come in,” he called, springing to his feet with a thrill of dread, of alarm.