When I returned home after two years' schooling in Massachusetts, I found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, was so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but the daughter listened eagerly.
When I left Rockport, Rachel—that was her name, Rachel Melrose—asked me when I was coming back. I assured her, never, and then courteously added if she would come to Kansas.
"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?"
Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale? There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and suffered with them, and I knew.
"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes.
"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been.
"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I should be proud to present my friend to them. I would take care of you. You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye.
"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone."
I did not know much of women then—nor now—although I thought then I knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world.
I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said this.