"
"Go slow, Halson. This is getting too much for the romantic Rulledge."
"Rulledge can bear up against the facts, I guess, Minver," Halson said,
almost austerely. "Her father died two years ago, and then she _had_ to
come East, for her aunt simply _wouldn't_ live on the ranch. She brought
her on here, and brought her out; I was at the coming-out tea; but the
girl didn't take to the New York thing at all; I could see it from the
start; she wanted to get away from it with me, and talk about the
ranch."
"She felt that she was with the only genuine person among those
conventional people."
Halson laughed at Minver's thrust, and went on amiably: "I don't suppose
that till she met Braybridge she was ever quite at her ease with any
man--or woman, for that matter. I imagine, as you've done, that it was
his fear of her that gave her courage. She met him on equal terms. Isn't
that it?"
Wanhope assented to the question referred to him with a nod.
"And when they got lost from the rest of the party at that picnic--"
"Lost?" Rulledge demanded.
"Why, yes.
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