She did not deny that she was jealous. All of Rowan she could hold fast would not be too much to carry her through their years of separation. Except for this one deadening memory, she had nothing to recall but good of him. Why must this come up now to torment her?
A knock sounded on the door. “Supper’s ready,” announced Mrs. Stovall tartly.
“I don’t want any to-night.”
After a moment’s silence Ruth heard retreating footsteps. A few minutes later there came a second knock.
“I’ve brought you supper.”
The housekeeper did not wait for an invitation, but opened the door and walked in. Never before had she done this.
Ruth jumped to her feet from the chair where she was sitting in the dusk. “I told you I didn’t want any supper,” she said, annoyed.
Mrs. Stovall had promised Rowan to look after Ruth while he was away. In her tight-lipped, sardonic fashion she had come to be very fond of this girl who was the victim of the frontier tragedy that had so stirred Shoshone County. Silently she had watched the flirtation with Larry Silcott and the division between husband and wife. It was her firm opinion that Ruth needed a lesson to save her from her own foolishness. But what had occurred on the porch a half hour since had given her a new slant on the situation. Martha Stovall prided herself on her plain speaking. She had a reputation for it far and wide. She proposed to do some of it now.
“Why don’t you want any supper?”
The housekeeper set the tray down on a little table and faced her mistress. Every angular inch of her declared that she intended to settle this matter on the spot.