Ridgway of Montana | Page 4

a dainty personality
was the highest compliment he could pay her charm, and an entirely
unconscious one.

"Have I kept you waiting?" she smiled, giving him her hand.
His answering smile, quite cool and unperturbed, gave the lie to his
words. "For a year, though the almanac called it a week."
"You must have suffered," she told him ironically, with a glance at the
clear color in his good-looking face.
"Repressed emotion," he explained. "May I hope that my suffering has
reached a period?"
They had been sauntering toward a little conservatory at the end of the
large room, but she deflected and brought up at a table on which lay
some books. One of these she picked up and looked at incuriously for a
moment before sweeping them aside. She rested her hands on the table
behind her and leaned back against it, her eyes meeting his fairly.
"You're still of the same mind, are you?" she demanded.
"Oh! very much."
She lifted herself to the table, crossing her feet and dangling them
irresponsibly. "We might as well be comfy while we talk;" and she
indicated, by a nod, a chair.
"Thanks. If you don't mind, I think I'll take it standing."
She did not seem in any hurry to begin, and Ridgway gave evidence of
no desire to hasten her. But presently he said, with a little laugh that
seemed to offer her inclusion in the joke:
"I'm on the anxious seat, you know--waiting to find out whether I'm to
be the happiest man alive."
"You know as much about it as I do." She echoed his laugh ruefully.
"I'm still as much at sea as I was last week. I couldn't tell then, and I
can't now."
"No news is good news, they say."

"I don't want to marry you a bit, but you're a great catch, as you are
very well aware."
"I suppose I am rather a catch," he agreed, the shadow of a smile at the
corners of his mouth.
"It isn't only your money; though, of course, that's a temptation," she
admitted audaciously.
"I'm glad it's not only my money." He could laugh with her about it
because he was shrewd enough to understand that it was not at all his
wealth. Her cool frankness might have frightened away another man. It
merely served to interest Ridgway. For, with all his strength, he was a
vain man, always ready to talk of himself. He spent a good deal of his
spare time interpreting himself to attractive and attracted young
women.
Her gaze fastened on the tip of her suede toe, apparently studying it
attentively. "It would be a gratification to my vanity to parade you as
the captive of my bow and spear. You're such a magnificent specimen,
such a berserk in broadcloth. Still. I shan't marry you if I can help
it--but, then, I'm not sure that I can help it. Of course, I disapprove of
you entirely, but you're rather fascinating, you know." Her eye traveled
slowly up to his, appraising the masterful lines of his square figure, the
dominant strength of his close-shut mouth and resolute eyes. "Perhaps
'fascinating' isn't just the word, but I can't help being interested in you,
whether I like you or not. I suppose you always get what you want very
badly?" she flung out by way of question.
"That's what I'm trying to discover"--he smiled.
"There are things to be considered both ways," she said, taking him into
her confidence. "You trample on others. How do I know you wouldn't
tread on me?"
"That would be one of the risks you would take," he agreed
impersonally.

"I shouldn't like that at all. If I married you it would be because as your
wife I should have so many opportunities. I should expect to do exactly
as I please. I shouldn't want you to interfere with me, though I should
want to be able to influence you."
"Nothing could be fairer than that," was his amiably ironical comment.
"You see, I don't know you--not really--and they say all sorts of things
about you."
"They don't say I am a quitter, do they?"
She leaned forward, chin in hand and elbow on knee. It was a part of
the accent of her distinction that as a rebel she was both demure and
daring. "I wonder if I might ask you some questions--the intimate kind
that people think but don't say--at least, they don't say them to you."
"It would be a pleasure to me to be put on the witness-stand. I should
probably pick up some interesting side-lights about myself."
"Very well." Her eyes danced with excitement. "You're what they call a
buccaneer of business, aren't you?"
Here were certainly diverting pastimes. "I believe I have been called
that;