He said no more but rode apparently thinking of much more that might be said and Jane watched him carefully, a hungry look coming into her eyes. His words had partly analyzed him for her:
He was real.
He was the most real human being she had ever known, real because he lived a real life, because he appreciated realities; he was sufficient to himself, finding such an interest in life about him that his own impressions and reactions occupied the foreground of his consciousness.
All her life she had been fed on the artificial, living on a soft pad of unrealities which softened and hid the bed-rock foundation of existence from her. Within the last weeks she had had her first taste of the real, was face to face with life and with herself; it had been sweet and inspiring; she felt a great urge for more of that experience and her mind sped ahead into the vague future, the future which her imagination could not even conjure because the new foundation beneath her feet was as yet unfamiliar. But for all that vagueness she thrilled and as she peered forward eagerly she saw this man, this clean, frank man ever at her side....
And yet he had spoken of love as a gamble which did not work itself out in life! A sharp stab of shame shot through her heart, for she had once handled her love as though it had been a white chip, she had been willing to chance it as a thing of little value and she knew that to him that would be the outraging of a sacred thing.
And again she heard the pronouncement of Hilton: You cannot stand alone! You will fail! A knave, she now knew, but he knew her as she had been. And could he be right? Could she measure up to where a real man's love would not be wasted upon her? She did not know; she dared not think further, so driving back these doubts, she said:
"There's one question I want to ask and I want your honest answer. What is your opinion of Hepburn?"
He looked at her with that twinkle in his eye again.
"In just what way, ma'am?"
"At times he seems reluctant to talk to me, as though he knew more than he wanted to tell and again I've had a notion he didn't want me asking about certain ranch matters at all.