“If you can believe what these magazine fellers write,” went on the engineer, pensively, “the girl of to-day is a sort of mixture of bronc, ostrich, and rattlesnake thrown in. Smokes, drinks—say, Scotty, I wonder do they chew?”
“Search me,” responded Scott. “I don’t go into society much these days. I reckon, though, you’ve got to take these writing chaps with a grain of salt. There’s probably a few plain, ordinary girls left.”
“There’s plenty of plain ones, if the newspapers ain’t lyin’,” said Johnson, opening his home paper at the society page and revealing three emaciated damsels, clad in extremely short skirts, and with huge bird cages over their ears. “Not that Miss Polly’s like them,” he added, generously. “She’s a looker and a lady, too. I like her.”
“That’s lucky, Tom,” remarked Scott. “I’ll tell her she can stay on.”
Polly did stay on. The next day a telegram came from the happy bridegroom.
“For Heaven’s sake stay where you are. Stop racing around the country. Returning shortly. Bob.”
In the meantime, the days passed like hours. Polly rode with Scott, walked with Adams, chatted with Hard, and helped Mrs. Van Zandt with the housework when the latter would let her, which wasn’t often. Now and then she remembered Joyce Henderson, and when she did, her manner would cool toward Scott; but one couldn’t go on holding a grudge long in that climate. The glorious sun, coming after months of dark chilly weather, seemed to melt anything in one’s heart that was unfriendly. Joyce Henderson soon faded into half-tones.
There were a dozen interesting things to do everyday. A Mexican saddle with its high pommel and cantle, was fascinating after an English one. Foothills and arroyos were a charming part of one’s walk after the boulevards and parks of Chicago. She hugely enjoyed chatting in sign language with the Mexicans and Indians on the place, and before a week had passed she had picked up a number of Spanish phrases which she used with delighted inaccuracy.
She believed that of the men she liked Hard the best. He was the type of man she had always admired; the best type of an American gentleman, a man of good old family traditions, quiet and unassuming and yet full of a pleasant humor. She wondered what had brought him to Mexico—an unhappy love affair with the lady who sang? But Hard was not a man of whom one asked personal questions so she did not find out.
Scott, however, was the man who really interested Polly Street though she did not realize it. Much of that interest was due to the fact that he apparently did not care whether he interested her or not. One moment they would be on excellent terms, and the next he would have forgotten her.