The sunlight was fading off the prairie when a party of three sat in a first-class car as the local train went jolting westward. Henry Colston leaned back in his seat with a Winnipeg paper on his knee; and his appearance stamped him as a well-bred Englishman traveling for pleasure. He was thirty-four; his dress, though dusty, was fastidiously neat; his expression was pleasant, but there was an air of formality about him. One would not have expected him to do anything startling or extravagant, even under stress of emotion. Mrs. Colston resembled him in this respect. She was a handsome woman, a little reserved in manner, and was tastefully dressed in traveling tweed, which she had found too hot for the Canadian summer. Muriel, her sister, was twenty-four, and though the two were alike, the girl’s face was fresher, more ingenuous and perhaps more intelligent. It was an attractive face, crowned with red-gold hair; broad brows, straight nose and firm mouth hinted at some force of character, but her eyes of deep violet were unusually merry, and her warm coloring suggested a sanguine temperament.
So far, Muriel Hurst had taken life lightly and had foiled Mrs. Colston’s attempts to make a suitable match for her. The daughter of a man of taste who had died in difficulties, she had not a penny beyond the allowance provided by her sister’s generosity. Nevertheless, she was happy and had a strong liking and respect for her prosperous brother-in-law, though his restricted views sometimes irritated her.
She was now trying to arrange her impressions of Canada, which were mixed. She had looked down on Montreal with its great bridge and broad river from the wooded mountain, and from there it had struck her as a beautiful city. Then she had seen the handsome stone houses with their lawns at the foot of the hill, and afterward the magnificent commercial buildings round the postoffice. These could scarcely be equaled in London, but the rest of the town had not impressed her. It was strewn with sand and cement-dust: they seemed to be pulling down and putting up buildings and tearing open the streets all over it.
Afterward the Western Express had swept her through a thousand miles of wilderness, a vast tract of forest filled with rocks and lakes and rivers; and then she had spent two days in Winnipeg on the verge of the prairie. This city she found perplexing. The station hall was palatial, part of wide Main Street and Portage Avenue with their stately banks and offices could hardly be too much admired, and there were pretty wooden houses running back to the river among groves of trees. But apart from this, the place was somehow primitive. There were numerous hard-faced men hanging about the streets, and it jarred on her to see the rows of well-dressed loungers in the hotels lolling in wooden chairs close against the great windows, a foot or two from the street. It gave her a hint of western characteristics; the people were abrupt, good-naturedly so, perhaps, but devoid of delicacy.
Last had come the prairie—the land of promise—which seemed to run on forever, flooded with brilliant sunshine under a sky of dazzling blue. Banded with miles of wheat, flecked with crimson flowers, it stretched back, brightly green, until it grew gray and blue on the far horizon. It was relieved by the neutral purple of poplar bluffs, and little gleaming lakes; its vastness and openness filled the girl with a sense of liberty. Narrow restraints, cramping prejudices, must vanish in this wide country; one’s nature could expand and become optimistic here.
Then Colston began to talk.
“We should arrive in the next half-hour and I’ll confess to a keen curiosity about Cyril Jernyngham. He was an amusing and eccentric scapegrace when I last saw him, though that is a very long time ago.”
“You object to eccentricity, don’t you?” laughed Muriel.
“Oh, no! Call it originality, and I’ll admit that a certain amount is useful; but it should be kept in check. Indulged in freely, it’s apt to rouse suspicion.”
“Which is rather unfair.”