Left to himself, Rowan did not at once return to his magazine. His mind drifted to the girl he was on his way to marry. It was likely these days, whenever he was not busy, to go back to her, magnetized by the lure of her dark-eyed beauty. The softness and fragility of his sweetheart moved him to awe. That her fancy had selected him out of so many admirers was to him still an amazing miracle. He did not know that the mystery back of his silence had captured her imagination just as the poignancy of her piquant charm had laid a spell on his.
CHAPTER IX
A RIFT IN THE LUTE
THEY were married. And in swift procession the months followed the weeks.
At the Circle Diamond, Ruth queened it with a naïve childishness from which her youth had not yet escaped. Eagerly she played at housekeeping for a fortnight under the amused eyes of Mrs. Stovall, who had been employed by McCoy to do the cooking, her term as postmistress having expired. The next game that drew her was the remodelling of the house. Carpenters and decorators from Wagon Wheel came up, filled the place with litter and confusion, and under the urge of the young mistress transformed the interior of the unsightly dwelling into a delightful home. An absorbing period of needlework followed. New and pretty dresses took shape and were exhibited to Rowan, who did not have to feign admiration. For if she had been Paris gowned the slender grace of the girl could not have been enhanced in his eyes. She had a native instinct for style, a feeling for the harmonies and values of dress. Whatever she wore became an expression of her personality.
Ruth’s husband confessed to himself with a sinking heart that she did not really belong on a frontier ranch. The girl wife brought to her new home all the fastidiousness that had charmed him. Her sewing room was cheerful with Indian paint brushes and columbines, her little bedroom a study in delicate blues. He was glad of that. He did not want the dust of the commonplace to dull her vividness.
It pleased him that she accepted lightly all responsibility except that of having a good time. She had shipped her own piano to Wyoming, and she played a good deal. Sometimes she read a little, more often rode or hunted. Occasionally Rowan joined her on these excursions, but usually she went alone. For business more and more absorbed his time. The war between the sheep and cattle interests was becoming acute. Ranchmen, watching the range jealously, saw themselves being pushed closer to bankruptcy by Tait and his associates. Already there had been sheep raids. Cattle had been found dead at the water holes. Bullets had sung back and forth.
But though Rowan could spend little time with the girl he had married, a deep tenderness permeated his thought of her. It was still a miracle to him that she had come to the Circle Diamond as his wife.
When he rode the range he carried with him mental etchings of her little graces—the swiftness of the ready smile, the turn of the small, beautifully poised head, the virginal shyness that always captivated him. He missed sheer joy because he was profoundly unsure of holding her. Ruth, he felt, was in love with life, and he was merely a detail of the Great Adventure. Some day she might grow weary, take wings, and fly. Meanwhile a certain diffidence born of reticence sealed his lips. He found it impossible to express the emotion he knew so poignantly. It was of the hill code that a man must not show his naked soul.