“You have been worrying about something the last few weeks,” she said.
“Is that quite unusual?” asked Hetty. “Haven’t a good many folks to worry all the time?”
Flora Schuyler smiled. “Just finding it out, Hetty? Well, I have noticed a change, and it began the day you waited for us at the depot. And it wasn’t because of Jake Cheyne.”
“No,” said Hetty reflectively. “I suppose it should have been. Have you heard from him since he went away?”
“Lily Cheyne had a letter with some photographs, and she showed it to me. It’s a desolate place in the sage bush he’s living in, and there’s not a white man, except the boys he can’t talk to, within miles of him, while from the picture I saw of his adobe room I scarcely think folks would have it down here to keep hogs in. Jake Cheyne was fastidious, too, and there was a forced cheerfulness about his letter which had its meaning, though, of course, he never mentioned you.”
Hetty flushed a trifle. “Flo, I’m sorry. Still, you can’t blame me.”
“No,” said Miss Schuyler, “though there was a time when I wished I could. You can’t help being pretty, but it ought to make you careful when you see another of them going that way again.”
Hetty made a little impatient gesture. “If there ever is another, he’ll be pulled up quite sharp. You don’t think their foolishness, which spoils everything, is any pleasure to me. It’s too humiliating. Can’t one be friends with a nice man without falling in love with him?”
“Well,” said Miss Schuyler drily, “it depends a good deal on how you’re made; but it’s generally risky for one or the other. Still, perhaps you might, for I have a fancy there’s something short in you. Now, I’m going to ask you a question. Is it thinking of the other man that has made you restless? I mean the one we saw at the depot?”
Hetty laughed outright. “Larry? Why, as I tried to tell you, he has always been just like a cousin or a brother to me, and doesn’t want anything but his horses and cattle and his books on political economy. Larry’s quite happy with his ranching, and his dreams of the new America. Of course, they’ll never come to anything; but when you can start him talking they’re quite nice to listen to.”