Grant despised it. That difference in attitude toward the
world and its affairs was a ridge which separated the whole current of
their lives. It even, in a way, shut one from the view of the other;
at least it shut Grant from the view of Transley. Transley would
never understand Grant, but Grant might, and probably did, understand
Transley. That was why Grant was the greater of the two....

She reproached herself for such a thought; it was disloyal to admit
that this stranger on the Landson ranch was a greater man than her
husband-to-be. And yet honesty--or, perhaps, something deeper than
honesty--compelled her to make that admission.... She ran back over the
remembered incidents of the night they had spent together, marooned like
shipwrecked sailors on a rock in the foothills. His attentiveness, his
courtesy, his freedom from any conventional restraint, his manly respect
which was so much greater than conventional restraint--all these came
back to her with a poignant tenderness. She pictured Transley in his
place. Transley would probably have proposed even before he bandaged her
ankle. Grant had not said a word of love, or even of affection. He had
talked freely of himself--at her request--but there had been nothing
that might not have been said before the world. She had been safe with
Grant....

After she had thought on this theme for a while Zen would acknowledge to
herself that the situation was absurd and impossible. Grant had given
no evidence of thinking more of her than of any other girl whom he might
have met. He had been chivalrous only. She had sat up with a start at
the thought that there might be another girl.... Or there might be no
girl. Grant was an unusual character....

At any rate, the thing for her to do was to forget about him. She should
have no place in her mind for any man but Transley. It was true he had
stampeded her, but she had accepted the situation in which she found
herself. Transley was worthy of her--she had nothing to take back--she
would go through with it.

On the principle that the way to drive an unwelcome thought out of the
mind is to think vigorously about something else, Zen occupied herself
with plans and day-dreams centering about the new home that was to be
built in town. Neither her father nor Transley had as yet returned from
the trip on which they had gone with a view to forming a partnership, so
there had been no opportunity to discuss the plans for the future, but
Ze