Mary shivered a little, sympathetically.
“I can’t ever think of Doctor Clayton now without seeing him with that girl, dragging her out of that place with his broken arm. I asked Mrs. Dudley if the girl married him after all that; and she said yes, but it would have been better for him if she hadn’t, if she had gone to her death in the cañon that day, for she wasn’t a girl who could ever make any man happy. And do you know, I think it must have been that girl who caused him to live the life he is living!”
A sudden confusion had attacked Lucy Davison, who recalled certain conversations with Justin. They were in the nature of sacred confidences, so could not be mentioned even to Mary Jasper; but she, at least, knew that Sibyl was herself the girl whom Clayton had drawn from the cañon with that dangling broken arm, and whom he had afterward married. Why had he deserted her, or she him? And why were they now living apart? Believing that the name of Sibyl’s husband had been Dudley, Mary had failed to guess the truth.
Mary told Lucy that it would not be surprising if Mrs. Dudley married again, as there was “just the dearest man” who called on her with much frequency and seemed to be greatly enamored of her.
“He has a funny little bald head,” said Mary, “and he wears glasses, the kind you pinch on your nose; he keeps them dangling against his coat by a black cord. And he is as kind as kind can be, and a perfect gentleman. Mrs. Dudley says he is very rich, and I really believe she will marry him some time, for she seems to like him.”
The name of this amiable gentleman, Lucy learned, was Mr. Plimpton, and he was a Denver stock broker. Neither Mary nor Lucy dreamed of the truth of his relations with Sibyl Dudley.
Having recurred to people and affairs in Paradise Valley, Mary chattered on like a gay little blackbird, and knew she was very bewitching, bolstered among the pillows. Her illness had taken some of the color out of her cheeks, yet they still showed a rosy tint when contrasted with the pillows, and the whiteness of the pillows emphasized the color of her eyes and hair. She asked Lucy to move the little dresser farther along the wall, that she might see herself in the mirror. She desired to get certain stubborn tangles out of her hair, she averred; but she really wanted to contemplate her own loveliness.
“Mrs. Dudley puts the dresser that way for me sometimes, even when I don’t ask her to; and often I lay for hours, looking into the mirror, when she has gone out of the room. It’s like looking into the clouds, you know. You remember how we used to lie on the rocks there by the edge of the Black Cañon and look up at the clouds? We could see all kinds of things in them—men and horses, and wild animals, and just everything. When I let myself dream into the mirror that way I can see the same things there. And sometimes I try to picture what my future will be. Once I thought I saw a man’s face looking out at me, and it wasn’t Ben’s! Mrs. Dudley said I had been dreaming, and didn’t see anything, but it seemed real. I suppose I shall marry Ben, of course, just as you will marry Justin.”
Lucy’s face flushed.
“I don’t see why that should be a matter of course!”