“Well, I know where there’s another,” he said. “I ought to think myself a lucky dog.”
Virginia lifted quizzical eyebrows. “Ought to! That tastes of duty. Don’t let it come to that. We’ll take it off if you like.” She touched the solitaire he had given her.
“Ah, but I don’t like”—he smiled.
CHAPTER XII.
ALINE MAKES A DISCOVERY
Aline pulled her horse to a walk. “You know Mr. Ridgway pretty well, don’t you?”
Miss Balfour gently flicked her divided skirt with a riding-whip, considering whether she might be said to know him well. “Yes, I think I do,” she ventured.
“Mrs. Mott says you and he are great friends, that you seem very fond of each other.”
“Goodness me! I hope I don’t seem fond of him. I don’t think ‘fond’ is exactly the word, anyway, though we are good friends.” Quickly, keenly, her covert glance swept Aline; then, withdrawing her eyes, she flung her little bomb. “I suppose we may be said to appreciate each other. At any rate, we are engaged.”
Mrs. Harley’s pony came to an abrupt halt. “I thought I had dropped my whip,” she explained, in a low voice not quite true.
Virginia, though she executed an elaborate survey of the scenery, could not help noticing that the color had washed from her friend’s face. “I love this Western country—its big sweep of plains, of low, rolling hills, with a background of mountains. One can see how it gets into a man’s blood so that the East seems insipid ever afterward,” discoursed Miss Balfour.