She did not smile with him, but said soberly:
"I expect it is funny to you. It must be funny to all the old crowd. I can hear them, as soon as they know that I have decided to stay here, the girls at tea, the men in their clubs, talking it over. Jane Hunter, burying herself in the mountains and doing something, becoming earnest and serious minded, getting up with the sun and going to bed at dark! It is strange!"
"It's too strange for life, Jane," he said, pulling up his trousers gingerly and sitting on the davenport. He leaned back and smoothed his sleek hair. "It isn't real. You're going to wake up before long and find that out.
"It was absurd enough for you to come here, but this preposterous notion that you are going to stay.... Why, that's beyond words! What got into you, anyhow?"
He eyed her closely.
"I don't know, yet. It's a strange impulse but it's real, the first real thing that's ever gotten into me, I guess. I know only that ... except that it is a pleasant sensation.
"When I left New York I was desperate. I came here to take something tangible that was mine and go back with it and now I've found out that the thing I want is nothing that I can see or touch, that I can't take it away with me. Not for a long time, anyhow. It isn't waiting ready-made for me; I must create it from the materials that are in my hands."
He continued to look at her a thoughtful moment.
"You've told me a lot about yourself and about this ranch and about these men who are working for you. You've told me about this country and, rather vaguely, about your plans. I suspect you don't know much about them yet," he added parenthetically. "You've not asked a question about New York, nor why I came."
She picked a yellowed leaf from a geranium plant and turned to face him.