Her admirers had a sorry time of it for the next two weeks; she was
capricious, even irritable, absent-minded, and at no pains to conceal
that they bored her. Her appetite remained good, or Mrs. Montgomery
would have grown alarmed.
The answer to Cecil’s letter had required an entire day of anxious
thought. Her pen ran over with the emotions he had quickened; but pride
conquered, and she finally wrote him a gay friendly letter, assuring
him of a welcome in which curiosity would play no insignificant part,
but studiously concealing her burning interest.
She was profoundly thankful to the inspiration which dictated that
letter when his answer came. It was very brief, and its only enthusiasm
was inspired by the buffalo. There was not a mutually personal line in
it. He concluded by remarking that if he did not write again, she could
expect him any time just outside of a month. He should go to Southern
California first to visit some English ranchers, whom he had known at
Oxford, and to kill his grizzly.
Lee tore this letter into strips, and plunged into a desperate
flirtation with Randolph, giving him an unusual meed of dances at the
little parties of Menlo, making him get up at unearthly hours to ride
with her before his day in town--he detested riding--and driving every
evening to the station to meet him. He was puzzled, but inclined to
take the pleasant caprices of the gods without analysis. He was very
busy, and it was enough to know, as he sat at his table, his pencil
working at the thousand and one prosaic details of a huge iron building
he was designing, that his evenings and Sundays were to be made radiant
by the smiles of the most charming woman in the world. He forgot Cecil
Maundrell; and the future he tenaciously desired seemed imminent.