Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed to her in Jack’s handwriting and Frieda followed suit. When Jack had first been taken to the hospital and there compelled to lie always flat on her back, her handwriting had been difficult to read, but now that she had gotten used to this method of writing, her stroke was again as vigorous and characteristic as of old.
Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other girls. “Jack says she is getting on very well and we are to see her in a few weeks—perhaps,” she announced.
Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of course, isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written you, for Jack never tells anything but the best news of herself.”
“There may be an operation or something of the sort later on,” Jean conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it may not be for some months yet. Only if the operation does have to take place Jack has demanded that Jim come on from the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph Merrit to look after things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things are in a bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does come?” And Jean sighed.
An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should she behave in any special way?” she inquired, sitting straight up on the couch to gaze from Olive to Jean.
Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed, for Frieda was the only one of the four ranch girls who knew nothing of what had happened at the ranch between Jim Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew, their chaperon. What had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware that Jim and Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one another and then some mysterious misunderstanding had suddenly parted them.
“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested, knowing this would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one theme. “Sometimes I wish for Jack’s sake that we were all back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she was able to be out in the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of Jack lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three girls, so that there was a moment of painful silence in the room. Then Jean said more cheerfully after re-reading the latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim says that Ralph Merrit is doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and that he is a trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he has turned out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does Frank Kent.”
The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet forgiven Jean for last night’s scolding. Now she turned up her small nose a trifle more than usual. “Oh, you just say that because Ralph likes you best and Frank Kent is more fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean flushed.
“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that Jim should like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has to make his own way in the world just as Jim has; and Frank Kent, though he is awfully simple and a thorough good fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a title himself some day.”
“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an English lady and own country estates and ride to hounds?” Frieda suggested more peacefully, gazing across the room at Frank Kent’s photograph, which ornamented the bookshelf. “I think I should love to be introduced into English society and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended lamely.