Ranching for Sylvia | Page 8

the stream, it was very
still; and the air was heavy with the smell of dew-damped soil.
All this had its effect on George. He loved the quiet English country;
and now, when he must leave it, it strongly called to him. He had
congenial friends, and occupations in which he took pleasure--sport,
experiments in farming, and stock-raising. It would be hard to drop
them; but that, after all, was a minor trouble. He would be separated
from Sylvia until his work should be done.
"What a beautiful night!" she said at length. Summoning his resolution,
he turned and looked at her. She stood with one hand resting on the
gate, slender, graceful, and wonderfully attractive, the black dress
emphasizing the pure whiteness of her face and hands. Sylvia was an
artist where dress was concerned, and she had made the most of her
somber garb. As he looked at her a strong temptation shook the man.
He might still discover some excuse for remaining to watch over Sylvia,
and seize each opportunity for gaining her esteem. Then he
remembered that this would entail the sacrifice of her property; and a
faint distrust of her, which he had hitherto refused to admit, seized him.
Sylvia, threatened by poverty, might yield without affection to the
opportunities of a suitor who would bid high enough for her hand; and
he would not have such a course forced upon her, even if he were the
one to profit.
"You're very quiet; you must feel going away," she said.
"Yes," George admitted; "I feel it a good deal."

"Ah! I don't know anybody else who would have gone--I feel selfish
and shabby in letting you."
"I don't think you could stop me."
"I haven't tried. I suppose I'm a coward, but until you promised to look
after matters, I was afraid of the future. I have friends, but the tinge of
contempt which would creep into their pity would be hard to bear. It's
hateful to feel that you are being put up with. Sometimes I thought I'd
go back to Canada."
"I've wondered how you stood it as long as you did," George said
incautiously.
"Aren't you forgetting? I had Dick with me then." Sylvia paused and
shuddered. "It would be so different now."
George felt reproved and very compassionate.
"Yes," he said, "I'm afraid I forgot; but the whole thing seems unreal.
It's almost impossible to imagine your living on a farm in western
Canada."
"I dare say it's difficult. I'll confess I'm fond of ease and comfort and
refinement. I like to be looked after and waited on; to have somebody
to keep unpleasant things away. That's dreadfully weak, isn't it? And
because I haven't more courage, I'm sending you back to the prairie."
"I'm quite ready to go."
"Oh, I'm sure of that! It's comforting to remember that you're so
resolute and matter-of-fact. You wouldn't let troubles daunt
you--perhaps you would scarcely notice them when you had made up
your mind."
The man smiled, rather wistfully. He could feel things keenly, and he
had his romance; but Sylvia resumed:
"I sometimes wonder if you ever felt really badly hurt?"

"Once," he said quietly. "I think I have got over it."
"Ah!" she murmured. "I was afraid you would blame me, but now it
seems that Dick knew you better than I did. When he made you my
trustee, he said that you were too big to bear him malice."
The blood crept into George's face.
"After the first shock had passed, and I could reason calmly, I don't
think I blamed either of you. You had promised me nothing; Dick was
a brilliant man, with a charm everybody felt. By comparison, I was
merely a plodder."
Sylvia mused for a few moments.
"George," she said presently, "I sometimes think you're a little too
diffident. You plodders who go straight on, stopping for nothing,
generally gain your object in the end."
His heart beat faster. It looked as if she meant this for a hint.
"I can't thank you properly," she continued; "though I know that all you
undertake will be thoroughly carried out. I wish I hadn't been forced to
let you go so far away; there is nobody else I can rely on."
He could not tell her that he longed for the right to shelter her
always--it was not very long since the Canadian tragedy--but silence
cost him an effort. At length she touched his arm.
"It's getting late, and the others will wonder where we are," she
reminded him.
They went back to the house; and when Sylvia joined Mrs. Lansing,
George felt seriously annoyed with himself. He had been deeply stirred,
but he had preserved an unmoved appearance when he might have
expressed some sympathy of tenderness which