"Is it any more impossible than the people and things we have just encountered?"
"Nonsense! Jack in love with some half-breed—that dusky beauty in breeches who rides astride, and whom he happened to mention to us? It's preposterous!"
"My dear," resumed Blanch calmly, "don't deceive yourself. My woman's intuition tells me that I'm right. Jack's notion of beginning a new life is all nonsense—there's a deeper reason than that for this change in him. Take my word for it, there's a woman at the bottom of it for what possible attraction could this horrid country and its people have for a civilized being?"
"I can't believe it," answered Bessie; "you know how fastidious Jack is. Besides it was only a fleeting glance that he caught of the woman he mentioned—and that in the twilight."
"A glance is quite enough for a fool to fall in love with a phantom," retorted Blanch warmly, thrusting the ground vigorously with the point of her sunshade.
"They say," she went on, "that these dark beauties of the South possess a peculiar fascination of their own—that they have a way of captivating men before they realize what's happening. They sort of hypnotize them, you know."
"But not a man of Jack's type!"
"Oh, I don't mean to infer that she's beautiful," continued Blanch. "Attractive she may be, but how could anything so common be really beautiful? It's not that which worries me—it's the state of his mind. He has evidently reached a crisis. As long as I can keep him in sight he's safe, but should he be left here alone with one of these women in his present frame of mind, there's no knowing what might happen. Any woman if fairly attractive and a schemer, can marry almost any man she has a mind to. You know," she added, "he's not given to talking without a purpose and usually acts even though he lives to repent of it afterwards. Why, if he were left here, he might marry from
ennui, who knows? One hears of such things."
"Heavens!" ejaculated Bessie, "it makes one shudder to think of it! Hush!" she added, nodding in the direction of the house where the Captain appeared in the doorway and halted, regarding them with a mixed expression of curiosity and amusement.