“Well, six years ago my dear husband died, and it was Mr. Robles who persuaded me to return to California. He selected this beautiful ranch for us, near to his own home. And we have all been so happy here at La Siesta.”
“Mr. Robles is certainly a wonderful man, with all those art treasures around him.”
“He has princely tastes and princely wealth as well—this you will have seen for yourself today. He travels a great deal abroad, sometimes for a whole year at a time, and then returns quietly to his hermitage. He has taken a great fancy to you, Mr. Willoughby. You are lucky in gaining the friendship of such a man.”
“I think I’ll like him, too—when I know him better,” replied Willoughby, with cautious reserve.
CHAPTER XI—A Rejected Suitor
IN Dick Willoughby’s presence Marshall Thurston contented himself with sullen looks. But beyond his sight and hearing he spoke truculently of what he was going to do some day to get level with “the hired hand who had had the infernal insolence to call him down in public.” So all the little world on the rancho knew, or at least believed, that a bitter feud was in progress.
Two or three of the cowboys fostered young Marshall’s feelings of animosity, partly out of sheer devilment, partly because they deemed it good policy to keep in the good graces of the heir to the rancho. Moreover, so long as old Ben Thurston knew nothing about it, they were always willing to break a bottle with the dissipated spendthrift, not only because good liquor was not to be despised at any time, but also for the sake of the amusement afforded by Marshall, in his cups, with his stories of fast life in New York and his apparently inexhaustible fund of highly spiced anecdotes. Even his braggart threats against Willoughby had an element of fun.
“Why don’t you cut him out with the girl?” one of his boon companions had suggested on an occasion of this kind.