"Usually?" said Hetty. "I scarcely remember him leaving Fremont once in
three years."
Clavering laughed. "Then he leaves it a good deal more often now. A man
must have a little diversion when he lives as we do, and no doubt Larry
feels lonely. You are here, and Heloise Durand has gone away."
Hetty understood the implication, for she had some notion how the men who
spent months together in the solitude of the prairie amused themselves in
the cities. Nor had she and most of her neighbours wholly approved of the
liberal views held by Heloise Durand. She had, however, an unquestioning
belief in Larry, and none in the man beside her.
"I scarcely think you need have been jealous of him," she said. "Larry
wasn't Miss Durand's kind, and he couldn't be lonely. Everybody was fond
of him."
Clavering nodded. "Of course! Still, Larry hasn't quite so many friends
lately."
"Now," said Hetty with a little flash in her eyes, "when you've told me
that you have got to tell the rest. What has he been doing?"
"Ploughing!" said Clavering drily. "I did what I could to restrain him,
but nobody ever could argue with Larry."
Hetty laughed, though she felt a little dismay. It was then a serious
affair to drive the wheat furrow in a cattle country, and the man who did
it was apt to be regarded as an iconoclast. Nevertheless, she would not
show that she recognized it.
"Well," she said, "that isn't very dreadful. The plough is supreme in the
Dakotas and Minnesota now. Sooner or later it has got to find a place in
our country."
"Still, that's not going to happen while your father lives."
The girl realized the truth of this, but she shook her head. "We're not
here to talk wheat and cattle, and I see Flo Schuyler looking at us," she
said. "Go across and make yourself agreeable to the others for the honour
of the prairie."
Clavering went; but he had left an unpleasant impression behind him, as he
had perhaps intended, while soon after he took his departure Flora
Schuyler found her friend alone.
"So you sent Jake away!" she said.
"Yes," said Hetty. "I don't know what made me, but I felt I had to. I
almost meant to take him."
Flora Schuyler nodded gravely. "But it wasn't because of that man
Clavering?"
"It was not," said Hetty, with a little laugh. "Don't you like him? He is
rather a famous man back there on the prairie."
Flora Schuyler shook her head. "No," she said; "he reminded me of that
Florentine filigree thing. It's very pretty, and I bought it for silver,
but it isn't."
"You think he's that kind of man?"
"Yes," said Miss Schuyler. "I wouldn't take him at face value. The
silver's all on top. I don't know what is underneath it, and would sooner
somebody else found out."