The Ranch Girls at Home Again Part 17

Left to herself, Jean had been crying softly, although she could not exactly have explained the cause. Life was such a jumble--one wanted so much and had so little! Then often the very thing that had seemed fair and desirable turned to bitterness and regret! Well, to one thing she had at least made up her mind--she would not marry Giovanni. Yet she had promised to give him an answer within the hour.

Hearing Ralph's step she started nervously. And then with the familiarity of old acquaintance she frowned upon him.

"I thought you were the Prince Colonna," she began crossly.

Ralph stiffened. "I am sorry that I am not. I had no idea of disturbing you. But I'll go and find your Prince if you like."

"He is not my Prince; don't be stupid, Ralph, and do please sit down. I don't see why you feel it so necessary to avoid me recently."

"Don't you?" Ralph answered. Then for several moments he said nothing more. However, though he did not appear to be looking, he had a clear enough vision of Jean's face, her dark eyes swimming in unshed tears, her heavy lids and the pallor of her cheeks.

"Jean," Ralph swung himself around swiftly and Jean saw the firmness of his lips, the decisive outline of his jaw and his high, almost n.o.ble forehead, "if there is any one in this world, I don't care who or what he is, who has done anything or said anything to make you unhappy, why if I can, won't you let me help to straighten things out. You said just now that the Prince Colonna was not your Prince. Perhaps you were only angry at my tactless way of expressing things, but if there is any trouble between you--" the young man hesitated.

"But there isn't--not the slightest," Jean replied with the familiar shrug of her shoulders and that demure expression about the corners of her mouth and in her brown eyes that her old friend remembered so well.

"The truth is, Ralph, that I am tired of your and of other people's pretending that you believe the Prince Colonna and I are engaged to each other. Because we are not, and never will be." This was as unreasonable and inconsistent a speech as any girl could well manage to make.

"Thank the Lord!" Ralph replied, so unconsciously and so sincerely that, as he was not looking toward her at the moment, the girl allowed herself to smile.

"I don't see why you should be so glad, Ralph?" she murmured.

"Oh, don't you?" Ralph answered between his teeth. "Then to the best of my ability I'll tell you, Jean Bruce. I love you, I always have loved you from the hour I saw you drying your hair by that brook in the wilderness, say a thousand years ago! So now if you are not going to marry this Italian youth, why it gives me a longer chance to keep on working and working until I have something to offer you that you wish, money, position."

Swiftly the girl rose, laying her fingers gently against the young man's lips.

"Don't say those last words to me again, Ralph. I feel tonight that I never, never wish to hear them again. You have the thing already I want most in the world if you are willing to give it to me. Why haven't you understood in these last few months? I couldn't exactly propose to you, could I, dear?" Jean questioned demurely.

Ten minutes afterwards Jean, with a rose-colored shawl wrapped about her shoulders, arm in arm with Ralph, was walking about outdoors, forgetful of the autumn coldness, of the guests who were asking for her, of everything in the whole world except her own happiness. Finally she was surprised by seeing two other figures approaching them who were equally oblivious.

With a low laugh Jean drew herself and her companion into the shadow.

"Jack and Frank!" she whispered. Then, as the other girl and man were nearly opposite them, "I thought you both promised Jim not to do this sort of thing, at least not tonight, Jack Ralston," Jean began unexpectedly. "Yet I am glad to have found you alone, because I want to tell you first that I am very happy. I don't want other people to know it just yet, but I too am going to be married."

There was a note in Jacqueline Ralston's voice as she replied that to save her life she could not conceal.

"I am very glad for your sake, Jean darling," Jack answered. "You know how much I shall hope for your and Giovanni's happiness."

"Giovanni's?" Jean's manner now suggested unutterable reproach. Ralph Merrit stepped forward and stood close beside Jean.

"Hasn't any member of my beloved family sense enough to guess that I have always cared for Ralph, or at least I have always cared for him in the past six months," Jean protested. "It is only that I have had to do desperate deeds to make him care for me."

But the girl's next words were smothered in Jack's embrace, while Frank was giving Ralph's hand such a squeeze that though it was considerably hardened from labor, it was difficult for him not to wince.

Then the four young people were so interested in one another that they paid no attention to two other persons who were seen coming toward them, until they finally discovered one of them to be Frieda. She was looking more ethereal than ever in a long pale blue silk coat with a chiffon scarf about her blond head, and was accompanied by the Professor.

"Whatever are you doing out here? It seems very rude to our guests,"

Frieda murmured reproachfully. "I am sure Jim and Ruth will think it very rude of you."

"But, Frieda, baby," Jack protested, "aren't you and Professor Russell also out here, as you call it? I can't see that we are much more to blame than you."

Frieda gazed upward at the serious young man, who returned her glance with such solemn gravity that Jack felt a shiver of apprehension, while Jean stared at the new-comers closely, as if trying to solve a puzzle.

"Oh, no, it is not the same with us," Frieda answered serenely. "You see Ralph and Jean are not engaged at all, and you and Frank have been engaged such a long time, Jack, so you ought to be used to it by now.

But Henry and I, why we just become engaged half an hour ago, so of course we like to be out in the moonlight together," Frieda ended conclusively.

Five years have pa.s.sed away and Jacqueline Ralston is now "Lady Kent"

with a small son of her own to inherit the t.i.tle, while Frank is a well-known Liberal member of Parliament. But they still make frequent trips back to the old Rainbow Ranch, which Jack, in spite of her affection for her new home, has never ceased to love better than any other place on earth.

And these home-comings of Lord and Lady Kent and the small "James Colter Kent" are usually the signal for a foregathering of all the four Ranch girls with their husbands and families under the great sheltering roof of "Rainbow Castle."

For no one of the girls now lives continuously at the Ranch, which is still left to Jim's devoted management. As much as possible of their time Jean and Ralph and their small daughter, Jacqueline, spend with them--partly in order that Ralph may continue to supervise the working of the Rainbow Mine which has not yet failed in its output of gold.

Ralph Merrit has recently become one of the best known mining experts in the United States, so that his advice is constantly being asked both in this country and abroad. And wherever he travels Jean and her little girl accompany him, for Jean has become one of the most devoted and absorbed of wives.

After the entirely surprising announcement of Frieda Ralston's engagement to Professor Russell on the night of their ball at the ranch, Jack, Ruth and Jim Colter seriously opposed her marriage. In the first place, Frieda was too young to know her own mind; Professor Russell was more than ten years her senior and they had not a single taste in common. So by and by Frieda was brought to consent to having her engagement postponed. Afterwards she spent one whole year in England with Jack, seeing as much of society and young men as her sister could arrange for her. Nevertheless, to everybody's surprise, Frieda stuck to her original choice and two years after her engagement became Mrs.

Russell. She is exceedingly happy.

So far Frieda has no children, but lives with her husband's parents, and as he is an only child, they continue to spoil and adore her. Also the grave young professor, who has never outgrown his first impression of Frieda as a glorified doll, still treats her as if the least harshness would utterly destroy her.

Olive Van Mater is unmarried and already insists upon calling herself an old maid. She is not devoting her life to teaching the Indians, although she has partly fulfilled her old dream. At the close of the year, when her grandmother's final will was read, to the immense surprise of every one, Olive inherited one-half her large fortune, the other half being divided among the Harmon family. For the will announced that if any girl was able to show such self-will and such disregard of wealth as Olive had shown, should she fail in the interim to marry Donald, that therefore she alone deserved her grandmother's inheritance. As this money was far more than Olive wanted or needed, she was thus enabled to found an agricultural school among the Indians, which was to teach them to combine their old knowledge with the new discoveries of science and so to make life happier, if possible, for a misunderstood race.

Yet Olive was to marry in the end an artist whom she finally met while visiting Jack and Frank at Kent House. The young man was poor and unknown then, but his first success was won with a painting of the head of his beautiful wife and daughter.

Possibly Jim and Ruth might have been lonely now and then at the old ranch, except for the fact that in the course of time they had four daughters of their own besides Jimmikins and each one bore the name of one of the former Ranch girls.