“So you’ve seen some one in the East who is better looking? You can’t fool me! I know! What’s his name?”
“Truly I haven’t seen any one in the East who is better looking. I wasn’t thinking of anything of the kind.”
“Then he is still the best looking, is he? If you still think so, it’s a sure sign that you’ll marry him. That’s why I think I shall marry Ben. I haven’t seen any one in Denver I like as well as Ben, or who is as good looking; and one has a chance to see a good many men in a city like this.”
“Has Ben been to call on you?”
“Oh, yes; he was here only last week. When I first came up here I couldn’t get him to call, though I was told I might invite him. But when he got started he kept coming and coming, and now he comes almost too often. Mrs. Dudley has been very kind and good to him, and sometimes I’m almost jealous, thinking he likes her almost as much as he does me. I should be truly jealous, I think, if I didn’t know about Mr. Plimpton.”
She studied her mirrored reflection, wondering if it could be possible for Ben to find Mrs. Dudley, who was so much older and had already been married, more charming than herself. It was so unpleasant a thought that she frowned; and then, remembering that frowns will spoil even the smoothest forehead, she drove the frown away, and began to talk again.
Though Lucy Davison would not admit it, she was anxious to hasten on to Paradise Valley; so she remained but a day with Mary Jasper. Yet in that time Sibyl contrived to exhibit to her the carriage, the magnificent horses and the liveried driver, taking her as she did so on a long drive through some of the fashionable streets and avenues.
As the carriage swung them homeward Sibyl made a purchase of fruits and flowers, with which she descended into a shabby dwelling. When she came out she was followed to the door by a slatternly woman, who curtsied and thanked her volubly with a foreign accent.
“She’s an Italian—just a dago, as some people say—but her husband has been sick for a month or more, and I try to brighten her home up a bit. I don’t know what he does when he’s well; works for the railroad, I believe.”
Then the carriage moved on again, away from the cheap tenements, and into the wealthier sections once more, where Sibyl lived.