Without a word the boy nodded, but he followed the girl for a few yards until they were standing ankle deep in the shimmering green foliage of Frieda's violet beds which were not far from the Lodge. And although in the path a few feet away there was a small bench where the girls often rested after their work among the flowers, Olive would not consent to sitting down.
Slowly and patiently as she could, she explained to Carlos the utter impossibility of his feeling for her. In the first place, he was a boy while she was a number of years his senior. Then he was completely mistaken in his idea that because she had been raised among Indian people she cared for their life or habits. Not for anything on earth would she return to their simple and primitive existence. Because Olive was essentially gentle and because her sympathy and understanding of the Indian boy's nature was a matter of experience as well as kindness of heart, she did try to take the sting away from the present situation so far as she could; yet she felt obliged to be firm, for there must be no repetition of Carlos' foolish letter to her. He must appreciate that she was fond of him because he had once befriended her in a difficulty, and that she was grateful and would always be interested in his welfare. But to care for him in any other fashion was absolutely out of the question. Never again must he even dare to refer to the subject.
Notwithstanding her resolute attitude and the arguments which she had used so forcibly, at the end of their conversation Olive did not feel sure that Carlos was as entirely convinced of the absurdity of his desire as he should have been. For she had spared him the one course open to her that might have brought him to his senses—sheer ridicule. Therefore when Olive was back in her own room alone and undressing for the night, since she had not felt in the mood for rejoining her friends, she wondered if she had been altogether wise. Certainly she had not liked Carlos' manner, and two remarks of his near the conclusion of their talk had left her very angry.
"It is Miss Ralston who has turned you against me," he had muttered sullenly. "She don't like me, she don't understand. She thinks I am no more than a servant about her place. If it had not been for her you might have stayed always in the wilderness with me when both of us were children. Then you would never have known of your people nor learned to love the stupid white man's world. Miss Ralston is my enemy; therefore I hate her." And with these words Carlos had drawn up his lean, boyish frame with the majesty of a deposed king.
Olive's sudden wrath had humbled him for the moment at least; yet just before she turned to go he had said again with equal passion, although his manner was quieter and more subdued.
"Then if it is not Miss Ralston who has come between us, there is some one you care for. I wonder if it can be the far-away guest and friend, who arrived this afternoon by the iron trail of the prairies?"
When Olive did not answer but walked quietly back to the Lodge, Carlos stood for a time like a bronze statue, silent and unmoving; then swift as a shadow he threaded his way between the cottonwood trees, actually observing Jack and Frank from the beginning to the end of their conversation, although hearing little of what they said.