THE BURSTING OF THE CHRYSALIS
Frances Durham Rugley was growing up. At least, she felt a great many
years older now than she did that day so short a time before when,
riding along the trail, she had heard Pratt and the mountain lion
fighting in Brother's Coulie.
She looked at her reflection in the long dressing-mirror in her own
room, and could not see that she had added to her stature in this time
"one jot or tittle." But inside she felt worlds older.
It was the afternoon of the dinner-party day. She had come upstairs to
make ready to receive her guests. The dinner was for seven and Frances
had given herself plenty of time to dress.
Pratt was off on his pony, "getting the stiffness out of himself," he
declared. The old Captain was just as busy as a bee, and just as fussy
as a clucking hen, about the last preparations for the party.
And meanwhile Frances was undecided. She almost wished she might run
away from the ordeal before her. To face all these people whom, after
all, she knew so slightly, and play hostess at her father's table, and
be criticised by them all, was an ordeal hard for the range girl to
face.
She was not particularly shy; but she shrank from unkind remarks, and
she was sure of having at least one critic-extraordinary at the
table--Sue Latrop.
This was really Frances' "coming out party" but she didn't want to "come
out" at all!
"Oh! I wish they had never come here. I wish daddy had not asked them to
this dinner. Dear me!" groaned the girl of the ranges, "I almost wish I
had never met Pratt at all."
For, looking into the future, she saw a long vista of range work and
quiet living, with merely the minor incidents of ranch life to break the
monotony. This "dip" into society would not even leave a pleasant
remembrance, she was afraid.
And it might be years before she would be called upon to play hostess in
such a way as this again. She sighed and unbraided her hair. At that
moment there sounded a knock upon her door.
She ran to open it to her father.
"Here you are, Frances," said the old ranchman, jovially. "Never mind if
Lon hasn't got here yet; I've gone deeper into the treasure chest. I
want you to be all dolled up to-night."
His hands were fairly ablaze--or looked to be. He had his great palms
cupped, and that cup was full of gems in all sorts of ancient
settings--shooting sparks of all colors in the dimly lighted room.
"There's a handful of stuff to make you pretty," he said, proudly.
The ancient belt dangled over his arm. He placed all the things on her
dressing-table, and stood off to admire their brilliancy. Frances
swallowed a lump in her throat. How could she disappoint him! How could
she try to tell him how unsuitable these gems were for a young girl in
her teens! He would be heart-broken if she did not wear them.
"You are a dear, Daddy!" she murmured, and kissed him. "Now run away and
let me dress."
He tiptoed out, all a-smile. His wife's dressing-room had been a "holy
of holies" to this simple-minded old man, and Frances reminded him every
day, more and more strongly, of the woman whom he had worshiped for a
few happy years.
Frances did not hasten with her preparations, however. She sat down and
spread the gewgaws out before her on the dresser. The belt, Spanish
earrings of fabulous value and length, rings that almost blinded her
when she held the stones in the sunlight, a great oval brooch,
bracelets, and a necklace of matched stones that made her heart beat
almost to suffocation when she tried it on her brown throat.
She had it in her power to "knock their eyes out," as daddy (and Tom
Gallup) had expressed it. She could bedeck herself like a queen. She
knew that Sue Latrop worshiped the tangible signs of wealth, as she
understood them.
Cattle, and range lands, and horses, and a great, rambling house like
this at the Bar-T, impressed the girl from Boston very little. But
jewels would appeal to her empty head as nothing else could.
Frances knew this very well. She knew that she could overawe the Boston
girl with a display of these gems. And she would please her father, too,
in loading her fingers and ears and neck and arms with the brilliants.
And then, before she got any farther in her dressing, or had decided in
her troubled mind what really to do, there came another, and lighter,
tapping on her door.
"Who's there?" asked Frances.
"It's only me, Frances," said Pratt.
"What do you want?" she asked, calmly, rising and approaching the door.
"Got something for you--if you want them," the young man said, in a low
voice.
"What is it?" she queried.
"Open the door and see," and he laughed a little nervously.
Frances drew her gown closer about her throat, and turned the knob.
Instantly a great bunch of fragrant little blossoms--the wild-flowers so
hard to find on the plains and in the foothills--were thrust into her
hands.
"Oh, _Pratt!_" shrieked the girl in delight.
She clasped the blossoms to her bosom; she buried her face in them.
Pratt watched her with smiling lips, and wonderingly.
How pretty and girlish she was! The grown-up air that responsibilities
had lent her fell away like a cloak. She was just a simple,
enthusiastic, delighted girl, after all!
"Like them?" asked the young man, laconically.
"I _love_ them!" Frances declared.
Pratt was thinking how wonderful it was that a girl could seize a big
bunch of posies like that, and hug them, and press them to her face, and
still not crush the fragile things.
"Why," he thought, "I've had to handle them like eggs all the way here,
to keep from spoiling them beyond repair. Aren't girls wonders?"
You see, Pratt Sanderson was beginning to be interested in the mysteries
of the opposite sex.
"Run away now, like a good boy," she said to him, as she had to her
father, and closed the door once more.
She ran to her bathroom and filled two vases with water and put the
flower stems in, that they might drink and keep the blossoms fresh.
Then, with a lighter air and tread, she went about her dressing for the
party.
She put up her hair, deftly copying the fashion that Sue Latrop--that
mirror of Eastern fashion--affected. And the new mode became Frances
vastly.
Her new dress--the one she had had made for the pageant--had already
come home from the city dressmaker who had her measurements. She spread
it upon the bed and got her skirts and other linen.
Half an hour later she was out of her bath and ready for the dress
itself. It went on and fitted perfectly.
"I am sure anybody must admire this," she told herself. She was sure
that none of the girls at the dinner and dance would be more fitly
dressed than herself--if she stopped right here!
But now she returned to the dresser and looked at the blazing gems from
the old Spanish chest. If only daddy did not want her to wear them!
A ring, one bracelet, possibly the brooch. She might wear those without
shocking good taste. All were beautiful; but the heavy settings, the
great belt of gold and emeralds, the necklace of sparkling
brilliants--all, all were too rich and too startling for a girl of her
age, and well Frances knew it.
With sinking heart and trembling fingers she adorned herself with the
heaviest weight of trouble she had ever borne.
A little later she descended the stairs, slowly, regally, bearing her
head erect, and looking like a little tragedy queen as she appeared in
the soft evening glow at the foot of the stairs.
Pratt's gasp of wonder and amazement made the old Captain turn to look.
Above her brow was a crescent of sparkling stones. The long, graceful
earrings lay lovingly upon the bared, velvet shoulders of the girl.
The bracelets clasped the firm flesh of her arms warmly. The collar of
gems sparkled at her throat. The brooch blazed upon her bosom. And
around her slender waist was the great belt of gold.
She was a wonderful sight! Pratt was dazzled--amazed. The old ranchman
poked him in the ribs.
"What do you think of _that_?" he demanded. "Went right down to the
bottom of the chest to get all that stuff. Isn't she the whole show?"
And Frances had hard work to keep back the tears. She knew that was
exactly what she was--a show.
She could see the change slowly grow in Pratt's features. His wonder
shifted to disapproval. After the first shock he realized that the
exhibition of the gems on such an occasion as this was in bad taste.
Why! she was like a jeweler's window! The gems were wonderfully
beautiful, it was true. But they would better be on velvet cushions and
behind glass to be properly appreciated.
"Do you like me, Daddy?" she asked, softly.
"My mercy, Frances! I scarcely know you," he admitted. "You certainly
make a great show."
"Are you satisfied?" she asked again.
"I--I'd ought to be," he breathed, solemnly. "You--you're a beauty!
Isn't she, Pratt?"
"Save my blushes," Frances begged, but not lightly. "If I suit you
exactly, Daddy, I shall appear at dinner this way."
"Sure! Show them to our guests. There's not another woman in the
Panhandle can make such a show."
Frances, with a sharp pain at her heart, thought this was probably true.
"Wait, Daddy," she said. "Let me run back and make one little change.
You wait there in the cool reception-room, and see how I look next
time."
She could no longer bear the expression of Pratt's eyes. Turning, she
gathered up her skirts and scuttled back to her room. Her cheeks were
afire. Her lips trembled. She had to fight back the tears.
One by one she removed the gaudy ornaments. She left the crescent in her
wavy brown hair and the old-fashioned brooch at her breast. Everything
else she stripped off and flung into a drawer, and locked it.
These two pieces of jewelry might be heirlooms that any young girl could
wear with taste at her "coming out" party.
She ran to the vases and took a great bunch of Pratt's flowers which she
carried in her gloved hand when she went down for the second time to
show herself to her father.
This time she tripped lightly. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed. Her
bare throat, brown and firm, rose from the soft laces of her dress in
its unadorned beauty. The very dress she wore seemed more simple and
girlish--but a thousand times more fitting for her wearing.
"Daddy!"
She burst into the dimly lighted room. He wheeled in his chair, removed
the pipe from his mouth, and stared at her again.
This time there was a new light in his eyes, as there was in hers. He
stood up and something caught him by the throat--or seemed to--and he
swallowed hard.
"How do you like me now?" she whispered, stretching her arms out to him.
"My--my little girl!" murmured the old Captain, and his voice broke.
"Then--then you are not grown up, after all?"
"Nor do I want to be, for ever and ever so long yet, Daddy!" she cried,
and ran to enfold him in her warm embrace.
"Humph!" said the old Captain, confidentially. "I was half afraid of
that young person who was just down here, Frances. I can kiss you now
without mussing you all up, eh?"
Pratt had stolen out of the room through one of the windows to the
veranda.
His heart was swelling and salt tears stung his eyes.
Like the old Captain, the youth had felt some awe of the richly-bedecked
young girl who had displayed to such advantage the stunning and
wonderful old jewelry that had once adorned Spanish senoras or Aztec
princesses. Despite the fact that he disapproved of such a barbarous
display, Pratt had been impressed.
He had an inkling, too, as to Sue Latrop's attitude toward the range
girl and believed that some unkind expression of the Boston girl's
feelings had tempted Frances to show herself in barbaric guise at the
dinner. Pratt could not have blamed the Western girl if she had "knocked
their eyes out," to use Tom Gallup's expression, with an exhibition of
the gorgeous jewels Captain Rugley had got out of the treasure chest.
Without much doubt the old ranchman would have been very proud of his
daughter's beauty, set off by the glitter of the wonderful old gems. It
was his nature to boast of his possessions, although his pride in them
was innocent enough. His wealth would never in this wide world make
Captain Dan Rugley either purse-proud or arrogant!
The old man's sweetness of temper, kindliness of manner, and
open-handedness had been inherited by Frances. She was a true daughter
of her father. But she was her mother's child, too. The well-bred,
quiet, tactful lady whom the old Border fighter had married had left her
mark upon the range girl. Frances possessed natural refinement and good
taste. It was that which had caused her to go to her chamber after the
display of the jewels, and return for a second "review."
The appearance of the simply-dressed girl who had come downstairs the
second time had so impressed Pratt Sanderson that he wished to get off
here on the porch by himself for a minute or two.
The first load of visitors was just driving up to the gate of the
compound.
He watched the girls from Amarillo, and Sue, and all the others descend,
shake out their ruffles, and run up the steps.
"My!" sighed Pratt Sanderson in his soul. "Frances has got them all beat
in every little way. That's as sure as sure!"