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Page 44
Flo Hutter's twentieth birthday came along the middle of June, and all the
neighbors and range hands for miles around were invited to celebrate it.
For the second time during her visit Carley put on the white gown that had
made Flo gasp with delight, and had stunned Mrs. Hutter, and had brought a
reluctant compliment from Glenn. Carley liked to create a sensation. What
were exquisite and expensive gowns for, if not that?
It was twilight on this particular June night when she was ready to go
downstairs, and she tarried a while on the long porch. The evening star, so
lonely and radiant, so cold and passionless in the dusky blue, had become
an object she waited for and watched, the same as she had come to love the
dreaming, murmuring melody of the waterfall. She lingered there. What had
the sights and sounds and smells of this wild canyon come to mean to her?
She could not say. But they had changed her immeasurably.
Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the corner
of the house, where shadows hovered thick, she heard Lee Stanton's voice:
"But, Flo, you loved me before Kilbourne came."
The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some
situations, like fate, were beyond resisting.
"Shore I did," replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who was
being confronted by happy and sad thoughts on her birthday.
"Don't you--love me--still?" he asked, huskily.
"Why, of course, Lee! I don't change," she said.
"But then, why--" There for the moment his utterance or courage failed.
"Lee, do you want the honest to God's truth?"
"I reckon--I do."
"Well, I love you just as I always did," replied Flo, earnestly. "But, Lee,
I love him more than you or anybody."
"My Heaven! Flo--you'll ruin us all!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
"No, I won't either. You can't say I'm not level headed. I hated to tell
you this, Lee, but you made me."
"Flo, you love me an' him--two men?" queried Stanton, incredulously.
"I shore do," she drawled, with a soft laugh. "And it's no fun."
"Reckon I don't cut much of a figure alongside Kilbourne," said Stanton,
disconsolately.
"Lee, you could stand alongside any man," replied Flo, eloquently. "You're
Western, and you're steady and loyal, and you'll--well, some day you'll be
like dad. Could I say more? . . . But, Lee, this man is different. He is
wonderful. I can't explain it, but I feel it. He has been through hell's
fire. Oh! will I ever forget his ravings when he lay so ill? He means more
to me than just one man. He's American. You're American, too, Lee, and you
trained to be a soldier, and you would have made a grand one--if I know old
Arizona. But you were not called to France. . . . Glenn Kilbourne went. God
only knows what that means. But he went. And there's the difference. I saw
the wreck of him. I did a little to save his life and his mind. I wouldn't
be an American girl if I didn't love him. . . . Oh, Lee, can't you
understand?"
"I reckon so. I'm not begrudging Glenn what--what you care. I'm only afraid
I'll lose you."
"I never promised to marry you, did I?"
"Not in words. But kisses ought to--?"
"Yes, kisses mean a lot," she replied. "And so far I stand committed. I
suppose I'll marry you some day and be blamed lucky. I'll be happy, too--
don't you overlook that hunch. . . . You needn't worry. Glenn is in love
with Carley. She's beautiful, rich--and of his class. How could he ever see
me?"
"Flo, you can never tell," replied Stanton, thoughtfully. "I didn't like
her at first. But I'm comin' round. The thing is, Flo, does she love him as
you love him?"
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