the floor. 'But I'm not going to 'squeal' -- isn't that what they call it when you rail at Fortune because you've, lost the game?' She turned the pages of the paper calmly. ''Stock market' -- no use for that. 'Society's doings' -- that's done. Here is my page -- the wish column. A Van Dresser could not be said to 'want' for anything, of course. 'Chamber- maids, cooks, canvassers, stenographers-'
'Dear,' said Aunt Ellen, with a little tremor in her voice, 'please do not talk in that way. Even if your affairs are in so unfortunate a condition, there is my three thousand -- '
Octavia sprang up lithely, and deposited a smart kiss on the delicate cheek of the prim little elderly maid.
'Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient to insure your Hyson to be free from willow leaves and keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I know I'd be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. I'm going to earn my own living. There's nothing else to do. I'm a -- Oh, oh, oh! -- I had forgotten. There's one thing saved from the wreck. It's a corral -- no, a ranch in -- let me see -- Texas: an asset, dear old Mr. Bannister called it. How pleased he was to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I've a description of it among those stupid papers he made me bring away with me from his office. I'll try to find it.'
Octavia found her shopping-bag, and drew from it a long envelope filled with typewritten documents.
'A ranch in Texas,' sighed Aunt Ellen. 'It sounds to me more like a liability than an asset. Those are the places where the centipedes are found, and cowboys, and fandangos.'
''The Rancho de las Sombras,'' read Octavia from a sheet of violently purple typewriting ''is situated one hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal, on the I. and G. N. Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well- watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought under State's twenty- year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino sheep, with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and general ranch paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished according to the requirements of the climate. All within a strong barbed-wire fence.
''The present ranch manager seems to be competent and reliable, and is rapidly placing upon a paying basis a business that, in other hands, had been allowed to suffer from neglect and misconduct.
''This property was secured by Colonel Beaupree in a deal with a Western irrigation syndicate, and the title to it seems to be perfect. With careful management and the natural increase of land values, it ought to be made the foundation for a comfortable fortune for its owner.''
When Octavia ceased reading, Aunt Ellen uttered something as near a sniff as her breeding permitted.
'The prospectus,' she said, with uncompromising metropolitan suspicion, 'doesn't mention the centipedes, or the Indians. And you never did like mutton, Octavia. I don't see what advantage you can derive from this -- desert.'
But Octavia was in a trance. Her eyes were steadily regarding something quite beyond their focus. Her lips were parted, and her face was lighted by the kindling furor of the explorer, the ardent, stirring disquiet of the adventurer. Suddenly she clasped her hands together exultantly.
'The problem solves itself, auntie,' she cried. 'I'm going to that ranch. I'm going to live on it. I'm going to learn to like mutton, and even concede the good qualities of centipedes -- at a respectful distance. It's just what I need. It's a new life that comes when my old one is just ending. It's a release, auntie; it isn't a narrow- ing. Think of the gallops over those leagues of prairies, with the wind tugging at the roots of your hair, the com- ing close to the earth and learning over again the stories of the growing grass and the little wild flowers without names! Glorious is what it will be. Shall I be a shepherdess with a Watteau hat, and a crook to keep the bad wolves from the lambs, or a typical Western ranch girl, with short hair, like the pictures of her in the Sunday papers? I think the latter. And they'll have my picture, too, with the wild-cats I've slain, single-handed, hanging from my saddle horn. 'From the Four Hundred to the Flocks' is the way they'll headline it, and they'll print photographs of the old Van Dresser mansion and the church where I was married. They won't have my picture, but they'll get an artist to draw it. I'll be wild and woolly, and I'll grow my own wool.'
'Octavia!' Aunt Ellen condensed into the one word all the protests she was unable to utter.
'Don't say a word, auntie. I'm going. I'll see the sky at night fit down on the world like a big butter-dish cover, and I'll make friends again with the stars that I haven't had a chat with since I was a wee child. I wish to go. I'm tired of all this. I'm glad I haven't any money. I could bless Colonel Beaupree for that ranch, and forgive him for all his bubbles. What if the life will be rough and lonely! I -- I deserve it. I shut my heart to everything except that miserable ambition. I -- oh, I wish to go away, and forget -- forget!'
Octavia swerved suddenly to her knees, laid her flushed face in her aunt's lap, and shook with turbulent sobs.
Aunt Ellen bent over her, and smoothed the coppery- brown hair.
'I didn't know,' she said, gently; 'I didn't know -- that. Who was it, dear?
When Mrs. Octavia Beaupree, nee Van Dresser, stepped from the train at Nopal, her manner lost, for the moment, some of that easy certitude which had always marked her movements. The town was of recent estab- lishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms.
Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string, of loungers, the manager of the Rancho de las Sombras, who had been instructed by Mr. Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!
Thus keeping a speculative watch on all persons of possible managerial aspect, Octavia, with a catching breath and a start of surprise, suddenly became aware of Teddy Westlake hurrying along the platform in the direction of the train -- of Teddy Westlake or his sun- browned ghost in cheviot, boots and leather-girdled hat -- Theodore Westlake, Jr., amateur polo (almost) champion, all-round butterfly and cumberer of the soil; but a broader, surer, more emphasized and determined Teddy than the one she had known a year ago when last she saw him.
He perceived Octavia at almost the same time, deflected his course, and steered for her in his old, straightforward way. Something like awe came upon her as the strange- ness of his metamorphosis was brought
