Virginia’s conscience was of the twentieth century and American, though she was a good deal more honest with herself than most of her sex in the same social circle. Also she was straightforward with her neighbors so far as she could reasonably be. But she was not a Puritan in the least, though she held herself to a more rigid account than she did her friends. She judged her betrothed as little as she could, but this was not to be entirely avoided, since she expected her life to become merged so largely in his. There were hours when she felt she must escape the blighting influence of his lawlessness. There were others when it seemed to her magnificent.
Except for the occasional jangle of a bit or the ring of a horse’s shoe on a stone, there was silence which lasted many minutes. Each was busy with her thoughts, and the narrowness of the trail, which here made them go in single file, served as an excuse against talk.
“Perhaps we had better turn back,” suggested Virginia, after the path had descended to a gulch and merged itself in a wagon-road. “We shall have no more than time to get home and dress for dinner.”
Aline turned her pony townward, and they rode at a walk side by side.
“Do you know much about the difficulty between Mr. Harley and Mr. Ridgway? I mean about the mines—the Sherman Bell, I think they called it?”
“I know something about the trouble in a general way. Both the Consolidated and Mr. Ridgway’s company claim certain veins. That is true of several mines, I have been told.”
“I don’t know anything about business. Mr. Harley does not tell me anything about his. To day I was sitting in the open window, and two men stopped beneath it. They thought there would be trouble in this mine—that men would be hurt. I could not make it all out, but that was part of it. I sent for Mr. Harley and made him tell me what he knew. It would be dreadful if anything like that happened.”
“Don’t worry your head about it, my dear. Things are always threatening and never happening. It seems to be a part of the game of business to bluff, as they call it.”
“I wish it weren’t,” sighed the girl-wife.
Virginia observed that she looked both sad and weary. She had started on her ride like a prisoner released from his dungeon, happy in the sunshine, the swift motion, the sting of the wind in her face. There had been a sparkle in her eye and a ring of gaiety in her laugh. Into her cheeks a faint color had glowed, so that the contrast of their clear pallor with the vivid scarlet of the little lips had been less pronounced than usual. But now she was listless and distraite, the girlish abandon all stricken out of her. It needed no clairvoyant to see that her heart was heavy and that she was longing for the moment when she could be alone with her pain.