An instant the older girl hesitated. Then she said warmly:
"Certainly, Via dear, if you wish it. I have been thinking of late you did not care for me as you once did. Will you see about lunch, and I'll look after our horses? There is a shorter ride down into the ravine than the one we took when we first made the discovery. Now the underbrush has been cleared away, we can ride straight down the path we came out by. Don't say anything to Eda or Lina; for once it will be pleasanter to be just to ourselves!"
Soon after, still in the early morning sunshine, two of the new Ranch Girls were riding slowly down the steep path which led to the small lake in its bed among the rocks below.
They talked little. The riding required all their attention and neither were they in the mood for conversation. Both girls wore old riding-costumes of brown khaki bleached to gold by the sun.
Physically Jeanette Colter never had looked better. Mentally she was also more serene. These past two weeks she had been spending most of the time away from her family, having a hurried breakfast with them and an occasional dinner. Usually she was with her new friends who were occupying her own old home.
Mrs. Perry was a woman of sudden fancies to which she was apt to give free play. From the first Jeanette had attracted her strongly. Now as the days went by she grew more and more interested in Jeanette's graceful carriage, her promise of unusual beauty as she grew older. Her physical prowess also attracted the older woman, who was altogether unlike her and had been raised in a more conventional atmosphere. She always had wanted a daughter and perhaps for this reason had kept Cecil in surroundings that were not always wise.
Moreover, Jeanette had conceived a young girl's admiration for a pretty woman a good many years older than herself. She also believed that at last she had found the new friends she secretly had been longing for. If Cecil Perry openly preferred Lina, Mason Barret was more friendly with her than with any girl he had met in the neighborhood. Whenever it was possible they rode beside each other in their outdoor excursions through the country. In any games, tennis, or croquet, or whatever it might be, they played partners.
In Margery Barret, Jeanette believed she had discovered the friend who represents the ideal of every girl in the world. At present in Jeanette's eyes Margery was perfection. Never before had she a girl friend for whom she cherished any deep admiration, or more than an everyday affection. She and Martha Putnam and a half dozen other girls in the neighborhood had grown up together, played, quarreled and made friends. They were without illusions concerning one another and without any sense of the delightful mystery that awaits the forming of new friendships. Until of late her own sisters had occupied a more important part in her daily life. With them she had found her chief congeniality. Via was right, recently she had not cared so much for them or their society.
To-day as they traveled down the ravine, she found herself wishing Margery Barret were with her instead of Via. They had been longing to have a confidential conversation together. Already Jeanette had confided her own purpose. Tired of home and of the West, she intended to go East to school in the autumn. Margery had been for two years at a boarding school on Long Island, so there could be no other plan than that Jeanette induce her father to allow her to attend the same school.
Under the circumstances one can see how much the two girls had to discuss and arrange.