Joan enjoyed the tact of his remark. She leant forward and smoothed the silky neck of the Padre’s horse, and Buck’s admiring eyes took in the perfect lines of her well-cut habit. He had never seen anything like it before, and failed to understand the excellence of its tailoring, but he knew that everything about this girl was wonderfully beautiful, and he would have liked to have been able to tell her so.
As he watched her he could not help thinking of the moment when he had held her in his arms. It was a thought almost always with him, a thought which never failed to stir his pulses and set them racing.
“But you see I can’t do without her,” the girl went on as she sat up in her saddle again. “She’s a good worker, herself. She’s taught me a good deal already. Oh, yes,” she smiled at his look of incredulity, “I’ve begun my lessons. I am learning all I can, preparing for the bigger lessons of this—this”—she gave a comprehensive glance at the hills—“wonderful world.”
Buck nodded. But he rode on in silence, his face for the moment clouded with deep thought. He was thinking of that night in Beasley’s store. He was thinking of what might have happened there if those women had carried out their purpose. He was wondering what the lessons might be that this girl might yet find herself confronted with. The matter troubled him. And Joan’s surreptitious glance into his face warned her that the cloud had obscured his sun.
The man finally broke the silence.
“Have you got any menfolk?” he asked abruptly.
Joan turned quickly.
“No—why?”
“An uncle—a brother. Maybe a—father?”
There was something almost anxious in Buck’s manner as he enumerated the possible relationships.