“I’ll do it—but I’m scared of him.”
“You needn’t be. I’ll see him first and draw his fire.”
Mrs. McFarlane interposed. “We must do a little shopping first. We can’t meet your father as we are.”
“Very well. I’ll go with you if you’ll let me. I’m a great little shopper. I have infallible taste, so my sisters say. If it’s a case of buying new hats, for instance, I’m the final authority with them.” This amused Berrie, but her mother took it seriously.
“Of course, I’m anxious to have my daughter make the best possible impression.”
“Very well. It is arranged. We get in, I find, about noon. We’ll go straight to the biggest shop in town. If we work with speed we’ll be able to lunch with my father. He’ll be at the Palmer House at one.”
Berrie said nothing, either in acceptance or rejection of his plan. Her mind was concerned with new conceptions, new relationships, and when in the hall he took her face between his hands and said, “Cheer up! All is not lost,” she put her arms about his neck and laid her cheek against his breast to hide her tears. “Oh, Wayland! I’m such an idiot in the city. I’m afraid your father will despise me.”
What he said was not very cogent, and not in the least literary, but it was reassuring and lover-like, and when he turned her over to her mother she was composed, though unwontedly grave.
She woke to a new life next morning—a life of compliance, of following, of dependence upon the judgment of another. She stood in silence while her lover paid the bills, bought the tickets, and telegraphed their coming to his father. She acquiesced when he prevented her mother from telephoning to the ranch. She complied when he countermanded her order to have the team sent back at once. His judgment ruled, and she enjoyed her sudden freedom from responsibility. It was novel, and it was very sweet to think that she was being cared for as she had cared for and shielded him in the world of the trail.
In the little railway-coach, which held a score of passengers, she found herself among some Eastern travelers who had taken the trip up the Valley of the Flume in the full belief that they were piercing the heart of the Rocky Mountains! It amused Wayland almost as much as it amused Berrie when one man said to his wife: