glad that no one was there to watch with
quizzical eye as she rearranged the furniture; she was doubly glad that
he could not watch her at the mirror. She gave herself the most critical
examination since she left the East and on the whole she approved of the
changes. The stirring life in the open had darkened the olive of her
skin, she found, but also had made it more translucent; the curve of her
cheek was pleasantly filled; her throat rounder; her head better poised.
And above all excitement gave her the vital color.

She paused at this point to wonder why a stray cowpuncher should make
her flush but immediately decided that he had nothing to do with it; it
was the purchase of the mares that kept alive the little thrill of
happiness. But Marianne was essentially honest and when her heart jumped
as she heard a swift, light step come down the hall and pause at her
door, she admitted at once that horses had nothing to do with the
matter.

She wished ardently that she had made the discovery sooner. As it was,
before she composed herself, he had knocked, been bidden in and stood
before her. She knew, inwardly dismayed, that her eyes were wide, her
color high, and her whole expression one of childish expectancy. It
comforted her greatly to find that he was hardly more at ease than she.
He made futile efforts to rub some dust from his shirt.

"I wanted to get fixed up," he said, "but the note said to come _right_
after the race--Miss Jordan."

In fact he made a harum-scarum figure. The fight with him of the
moustaches had produced rents invisible at a distance but distinct at
close hand and the dust and the sweat had faded the blue of his shirt
and the red of his bandana. But the red flame of that hair and the keen
blue of that eye--they, to be sure, were not faded. She discovered other
things as he crossed the room to her. That he was far shorter than he
had seemed when he fought in the street. Indeed, he was middle height
and slenderly made at that. She felt that looking at him from her window
and watching him ride Rickety she had only seen the spirit of the man
and not the physical fact at all.

He shook hands. She was glad to see that he neither peered at her slyly
as a vain man is apt to do when he meets a girl who has sought him out
nor met her sullenly as is the habit of the bashful Westerner. His head
was high, his glance straight, and his smile appreciated her with frank
enjoyment.

She tried to match her spe