And Jim gave a mournful sigh that was part pretense and part reality.
Its effect was to make Jack at once jump to her feet and throw her arms about him, regardless of his immaculate shirt. Then she ran for protection to Ruth.
Happiness had made Ruth grow a year younger each month, her husband had stoutly declared, and though this statement was not strictly true, she did look very little older than the four Ranch girls as she stood waiting to receive their guests tonight. For the girls and Jim had insisted that she discard her nun-like fondness for gray and drab colors at least for this one evening and wear white. So Ruth's costume of heavy white corded silk with silver trimming was both youthful and becoming.
On one side of the hostess stood Miss Katherine Winthrop, looking singularly handsome and imposing in a gray satin evening gown trimmed with duchess lace and with a bunch of Frieda's violets at her waist. Olive was next in line, and then Jean, while on Ruth's other side the Princess Colonna was made more radiantly fair by a wonderful black gown and a diamond star in her hair. Jack stood beside her, and then Frieda.
The Princess seemed far more at ease and better able to appreciate and make herself popular with the hundred or more visitors than Miss Winthrop. For the Princess appeared almost to have forgotten, for the time at least, the years spent in the formal society of Rome and to be remembering only her own early girlhood in this same western country. A large number of the guests were traveled and cultured persons, the owners of large ranches and estates; but Jim had asked that all of their old acquaintances be invited regardless of wealth and position, so that there were many interesting figures who appeared as "western types" to Miss Winthrop, but whom the Princess immediately understood and enjoyed.
Indeed during the evening Jim Colter, who had never liked the Princess Colonna nor felt entirely comfortable in her presence, confided to Ralph Merrit that maybe a Princess could after all be a real live woman, though he hoped to the Lord that Jean Bruce was not going to undertake the job. Ralph had little comfort to offer either to Jim or to himself in return for this confidence. For everybody in the ball room who had heard the gossip concerning Jean and the young Prince had no doubt of its ultimate outcome. And naturally they marveled over two of the Rainbow Ranch girls making such distinguished marriages.
Perhaps Jean was not altogether displeased with this gossip, for she certainly danced with the young Prince most of the earlier part of the evening. The exact number of her dances Ralph Merrit could have told, although he was not conscious of having counted them. For except for dancing once with each one of the four Ranch girls and once with Ruth, he had spent the rest of the evening watching the dancers from a safe corner. For some reason or other he seemed not to feel sufficient energy for anything else.
It was a few moments after eleven o'clock that same evening when the Princess Colonna, feeling a hand laid lightly on her arm and turning, discovered Jean Bruce alone. The girl seemed to have grown suddenly tired and pale.
Fortunately the older woman's companion suggested at this moment that she might like him to get her an ice, so that she and Jean were uninterrupted for a moment.
"I wonder if you could come somewhere with me for a little while, where we could talk without any one else seeing us?" Jean pleaded. "I know you will think it strange of me, Princess, but all of a sudden it seemed to me that you were the only person in the world whom I could ask a certain question. And I must ask it of you before another hour has passed."