The girl’s face grew a trifle pale, and she glanced at Miss Schuyler who nodded encouragingly.
“Yes,” she said.
Torrance smiled, but Miss Schuyler did not like the glint in his eyes. “Then,” he said with incisive distinctness, “if you are in the same mind in another week, he shall.”
The girl went out, and Torrance, who had watched her face, turned to Miss Schuyler. “I guess that young woman will be quite equal to him,” he said. “Well, I am putting my house in order, and I will ride over once and see Hetty before I leave Cedar. You will stay here until she comes back to Fremont, any way.”
Miss Schuyler promised to do so, and stayed two days, as did Breckenridge, who eventually rode to Fremont with her. He was very quiet during the journey, and somewhat astonished his companion by gravely swinging off his broad hat when they pulled upon the crest of a rise.
“I wonder if you would listen to something I wish to tell you,” he said. “The trouble is that it requires an explanation.”
Flora Schuyler glanced at him thoughtfully, for she recognized the symptoms now. Breckenridge appeared unusually grave, and there was a little flush on his forehead, and a diffidence she had not hitherto seen there, in his eyes.
“I can decide about the rest when I have heard the explanation,” she answered.
“Well,” said Breckenridge slowly, “I came out West, so to speak, because I was under a cloud. Now, I had never done anything distinctly bad, but my one ability seemed to consist in spending money, and when I had got through a good deal of it my friends sent me here, which was perhaps a little rough on your country. Well, as it happened, I fell in with men and women of the right kind—Larry, and somebody else who did more for me. That made a difference; and while I was realizing how very little I had got for the time and dollars I had wasted, affairs began to happen in the old country, and I should have the responsibility of handling a good many of them if I went back there now. It sounds abominably egotistical, but you see what it is leading to?”
Miss Schuyler, who had no difficulty on that point, regarded him thoughtfully. Breckenridge was a handsome young Englishman and she had liked him from the first. Larry had fallen to another, and that perhaps counted for more than a little to Breckenridge; but she had seen more than one friend of hers contented with the second best. Still, she sighed before she met his gaze.