"Glenn, one chair used to be enough for us," she said, archly, standing

beside him.

But he did not respond to her hint, and, a little affronted, she

accepted the proffered chair. Then he began to ask questions rapidly. He

was eager for news from home--from his people--from old friends. However

he did not inquire of Carley about her friends. She talked unremittingly

for an hour, before she satisfied his hunger. But when her turn came to

ask questions she found him reticent.

He had fallen upon rather hard days at first out here in the West; then

his health had begun to improve; and as soon as he was able to work his

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condition rapidly changed for the better; and now he was getting along

pretty well. Carley felt hurt at his apparent disinclination to confide

in her. The strong cast of his face, as if it had been chiseled in

bronze; the stern set of his lips and the jaw that protruded lean and

square cut; the quiet masked light of his eyes; the coarse roughness

of his brown hands, mute evidence of strenuous labors--these all gave a

different impression from his brief remarks about himself. Lastly there

was a little gray in the light-brown hair over his temples. Glenn was

only twenty-seven, yet he looked ten years older. Studying him so, with

the memory of earlier years in her mind, she was forced to admit that

she liked him infinitely more as he was now. He seemed proven. Something

had made him a man. Had it been his love for her, or the army service,

or the war in France, or the struggle for life and health afterwards? Or

had it been this rugged, uncouth West? Carley felt insidious jealousy of

this last possibility. She feared this West. She was going to hate it.

She had womanly intuition enough to see in Flo Hutter a girl somehow to

be reckoned with. Still, Carley would not acknowledge to herself that

his simple, unsophisticated Western girl could possibly be a rival.

Carley did not need to consider the fact that she had been spoiled by

the attention of men. It was not her vanity that precluded Flo Hutter as

a rival.

Gradually the conversation drew to a lapse, and it suited Carley to

let it be so. She watched Glenn as he gazed thoughtfully into the

amber depths of the fire. What was going on in his mind? Carley's old

perplexity suddenly had rebirth. And with it came an unfamiliar fear

which she could not smother. Every moment that she sat there beside

Glenn she was realizing more and more a yearning, passionate love for

him. The unmistakable manifestation of his joy at sight of her,

the strong, almost rude expression of his love, had called to some

responsive, but hitherto unplumbed deeps of her. If it had not been

for these undeniable facts Carley would have been panic-stricken. They

reassured her, yet only made her state of mind more dissatisfied.




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