'"
"I am very glad," he replied with more politeness than exactness.
"That I was duly escorted, or that my father is 'without on the mat'?
. . . However, you do not appear glad one way or the other. And now I must
explain our business. It is to ask your company at dinner (do consider
yourself honoured--actually a formal dinner party in the Rockies!) to
meet the lieutenant-governor, who is coming to see our famous Viking and
Sunburst. . . . But you are expected to go out where my father feeds
his--there, see--his horse on your 'trim parterre.' And now that I have
done my duty as page and messenger without a word of assistance, Mr.
Roscoe, will you go and encourage my father to hope that you will be
vis-a-vis to his excellency?" She lightly beat the air with her whip,
while I took a good look at the charming scene.
Roscoe looked seriously at the girl for an instant. He understood too
well the source of such gay social banter. He knew it covered a hurt. He
said to her: "Is this Ruth Devlin or another?"
And she replied very gravely: "It is Ruth Devlin and another too," and
she looked down to the chasm beneath with a peculiar smile; and her eyes
were troubled.
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