He told him, in detail, all we knew from any source,
down to the moment of Wanhope's arrested conjecture.
"He did leave you at an anxious point, didn't he?" Halson smiled to the
rest of us at Rulledge's expense, and then said: "Well, I think I can
help you out a little. Any of you know the lady?"
"By sight, Minver does," Rulledge answered for us. "Wants to paint her."
"Of course," Halson said, with intelligence. "But I doubt if he'd find
her as paintable as she looks, at first. She's beautiful, but her charm
is spiritual."
"Sometimes we try for that," the painter interposed.
"And sometimes you get it. But you'll allow it's difficult. That's all I
meant. I've known her--let me see--for twelve years, at least; ever
since I first went West. She was about eleven then, and her father was
bringing her up on the ranch. Her aunt came along by and by and took her
to Europe--mother dead before Hazelwood went out there. But the girl was
always homesick for the ranch; she pined for it; and after they had kept
her in Germany three or four years they let her come back and run wild
again--wild as a flower does, or a vine, not a domesticated animal.
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