"I feel as if I’d known you for years," said Jeff heartily. "That’s funny, too," he added, "because you’re so different from any other woman I’ve ever known. You look as if you might have come from a book—but you speak out like Mesa City."
"Tell me about Mesa City. You know I was out West last year."
"Were you? Sure?" eagerly. "In Colorado?"
"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada."
"Nevada? That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle down there. What part?"
His voice fell a note. "I didn’t know that. I’m awfully sorry you were so unfortunate. Won’t you tell me about it?"
"There’s nothing to tell. Cheyne and I were incompatible—at least that’s what the lawyers said. As such things go, I thought we got along beautifully. We weren’t in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne went his way and let me go mine. It’s so easy for married people to manage, if they only knew how. But Cheyne didn’t. He didn’t want to be with me himself—and he didn’t want any one else to be. So things came to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to stay away. It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a bore—so we decided to break it up."
"Oh, dear, no! I wish he had been. Our life was one dreadful round of cheerful monotony. I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could have screamed. Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."
Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a specimen of ore. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was quite serious.
"I’m really sorry for him. It is—very sad——"
She threw her head back and laughed softly.
"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching—he would appreciate it as much as I do—if he had not already married again."
"Oh, yes. They’re living within a stone’s throw of my house."
"Of course. I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned toward him with an air of new confidences, "that’s only human. I can’t really give up anything I’ve once possessed. You know, I try not to sell horses that I’ve liked. I did sell one once, and he turned up one morning in a hired brougham. That taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten. Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my farm in Westchester. Of course, I couldn’t do that to Harold, but I did the next best thing. I’ve satisfied myself that he’s properly looked after—and I’m sure he’ll reflect credit on his early training."