Ruth smiled and nodded, wondering if she were relieved or disappointed. One could always count on Jim's not doing or saying the thing expected of him. After all, the moment she anticipated was not at hand.
"Of course I dearly love living on the ranch, Mr. Jim. But why do you ask me?" she answered.
"Because I love you, Ruth," Jim returned as quietly as though he had not been trying to speak the three magic words for months. "And I am a ranchman and don't know anything else. I don't understand a whole lot about women, but I believe they ought to like the kind of life a man has to offer before they tie up with him. If you hadn't come to like living out here I never would have told you I loved you, though it had eaten my heart out to keep silent. But you do care for the life now, Ruth, and—do you think you can care for me?"
The two horses were walking slowly side by side, and Jim put out a big warm hand and closed it slowly over Ruth's small cold ones which still held her reins. "I am only an overseer, and haven't much money or education to offer you, and I know how much these things count, but I will do my best for you and I do come of good people, dear, and it wasn't their fault I never learned more——" Jim added at last, hesitating as though even this slight reference to his past was torn from him against his will.
The woman made no answer, and for a little while longer they rode on.
"Can't you tell me, Ruth?" Jim urged gently.
Ruth had not spoken, because she had not known what she wished to say. Before she came out west Ruth Drew thought she hated men and had made up her mind never to marry. Her brother was selfish and idle, her father had been close and mean, and Ruth knew so little of other men she thought them all alike, capable of ugly deeds that women never dreamed of. Yet somehow Jim seemed different. Ruth was twenty-eight, which is not old as women marry nowadays; but everything depends on the point of view, and for a long time Ruth had thought she was to be an old maid.
"I am very fond of you, Mr. Jim, but I don't know that I love you," she answered nervously, in a small voice as cold and aloof as in the early days of her acquaintance with Jim.
But this time Jim laughed. "Don't be afraid of yourself, Ruth, dear," he pleaded, "and don't go back to Vermont to think how you felt when you lived there. I don't want you to be fond of me. You are fond of our old dog, Shep. I want you to love me, Ruth, well enough to go through thick and thin with me, to believe in me and fight for me to the last drop. We are not little people, dear, and I don't want little loving. Love is the biggest thing about us and I want all there is in it from you."
If Jim had leaned over at this moment and put his arm about Ruth, taking her answer for granted he would have saved her and himself much sorrow, for Ruth had one of those uncomfortable New England consciences which would not let her accept the gift of happiness without days of questioning and unrest.