by old acquaintances, schoolmates grown up, as she was, and people who had been neighbors and friends. There were a good many warm welcomes accorded her; yet she did not miss the poisoned honey of some tongues or the expressive glances of many eyes. Ina was quick to grasp that her father’s rise in the world of Tule Lake had engendered envy and contempt. She met the keen inquisitive eyes of motherly women who no doubt were wondering if she, too, had been spoiled by education and riches.
She was introduced presently to Kate’s fiancé, rather a matured man, whose name she did not catch. He had a florid handsome face, and his manner was intended to be suave and elegant, but was neither. Ina did not care for his keen-eyed appraisement of her person.
His companion, a dapper young man, blond, with curling mustache and large, languid, blue eyes, was Mr. Sewell McAdam. He wore gloves and carried a cane. It was plain that Ina was being presented to him, and that the occasion afforded him a gratification he did not intend to betray. Ina’s quick ear did not catch any words of pleasure at the meeting.
Gradually the crowd dispersed with groups and couples going toward their conveyances, and others walking down the street. Mr. McAdam quite appropriated Ina, but it pleased her to see that Marvie stayed close beside her.
“I’m having dinner with you,” announced her escort. “You can ride home with me. I’ve a fast little high-stepper.”
“Thank you, Mr. McAdam,” replied Ina, sweetly, “but I’m afraid of fast horses. I’ll ride home with my folks.”
The young gentleman appeared surprised and then annoyed. Ina bowed and passed on with Marvie, who was certainly squeezing her hand. They both climbed to the front seat, where Dall was already perched, while Mr. Blaine untied the horses at the hitching rail. Upon turning, with the reins in his hands, he espied Ina.
“Didn’t Sewell ask you to ride home with him?” he queried.
“Yes,” replied Ina, smiling.
“What’re you doin’ in here, then?” he demanded.
“Well, Dad, I’d rather ride home with Marvie and Dall,” returned Ina.
The presence of others, no doubt, restrained her father from a sharp retort. Ina saw the jerk of his frame and she heard him mutter as he climbed to the seat. Ina divined there was more here than just casual suggestion of the moment. It made her thoughtful all the way home, gravely anxious to reserve judgments.
* * * *
Ina’s first Sunday dinner at home was saved from being boresome, even irritating, by Marvie and Dall. These youngsters were wise enough to grasp the opportunity company at table afforded. Dall had a secret which she intuitively shared with Ina. Marvie was subtly antagonistic with all the ingenuity and devilishness of a keen boy. Some of his remarks were lost upon his father, whose appetite precluded observation, and his mother, buried in thought. They glanced off Mr. McAdam, too, but Kate’s glare was provocative of more, and Ina’s kicking him under the table made no impression.
“Mr. McAdam, you must have lots of sweethearts with that fast horse you drive,” remarked Marvie, naïvely. “Most girls wouldn’t mind anythin’ if they could ride behind a horse like yours.”
“Not so many, Marvie,” replied the young man, blandly.
“Can you drive him with one arm—so you’ll have the other one free?” inquired the boy.
“With my little finger.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Marvie.
The dinner was a bounteous repast, which it took time to consume. At its conclusion Marvie was dispatched on an errand, invented for the hour, and Dall was sent to her room. Kate paraded away with her fiancé, evidently to go out riding, and Mr. and Mrs. Blaine, without any excuses, left Ina alone to entertain their caller. The thing struck Ina as almost barefaced, and but for the pity she felt for her parents and older sister she would have resented it. How childish and silly of them! Ina viewed with augmenting dismay the gulf between her and them, something that could be bridged only by her understanding. Then she addressed herself to the task of entertaining this most eligible young man. Ina commenced amiably enough, but did not progress in a way that she thought flattering to herself. Mr. McAdam first interrupted her to say they would go out for a drive; then when it transpired that she was of different mind he stated he always took a lady out riding on Sunday afternoons.
“That’s very nice of you,” responded Ina. “It’s still early in the afternoon. I’ll excuse you.”
He stared at Ina as if she were a new species, and when finally it dawned upon him that she actually would not go and was sweetly advising him to hunt up another girl, he betrayed in sulky resentment not only his egotism, but a manifest disillusion. The moment ended Ina’s tolerance and desire to do her duty to her father’s friends.
“I wanted to drive you over to Lakeville. Told some friends I’d fetch you. Well, next Sunday we’ll go,” he said, his petulance easing out to words of finality. It did not occur to him that Ina might again refuse.
After conversation had been renewed he began to question Ina about her college life and her relatives in Kansas. Ina replied fluently, for to her it was a pleasant subject; but very quickly she grasped that Mr. McAdam was not interested in anything concerning it except the men she had known. He was not adroit in concealing his jealous curiosity. Ina would have had more respect for him if he had deliberately asked her if she was engaged or had a sweetheart, or if she flirted promiscuously or at all. Promptly then she cut her discourse on college and Kansas, and led him to talk of himself. He required no urging. Suggestion was not imperative. All she needed to do was listen.
Sewell McAdam was a salesman. He sold commodities for money. Stores and people, no credit and quick turnovers of goods, long hours and small wages for employees—of these things he was glibly full. His little leisure he devoted to fast horses, adornment of person, pinochle, and pretty girls. Never had Ina felt so immensely flattered! He had no love for open country. Never had sat round a camp fire in his life! Hunting was too hard work and fishing a dirty waste of time. The draining of Tule Lake was a master stroke of business minds, of whom his father claimed to be one. He had never seen a wild horse or the purple-gray of the sage hills.
“Let’s go out for a little walk in the yard,” suggested Ina, rising. So she got him outdoors where there was air, but no escape. They inspected the corrals, sheds, barns, horses, with all of which Mr. McAdam found fault. He hated farm life anyway.
“You’ll like living in Klamath Falls,” he said, as if inspired.
“Indeed!” murmured Ina, stifling a laugh. If only Marvie would appear to the rescue! But certain it was that this favored suitor from the city had been accorded a fair field.
Then to Ina’s dismay the voluble young gentleman spied the grove of large trees far back of the house and desired to go thither. In truth, he was sentimental. Ina suffered herself to be led there. It seemed a sacrilege—something she did not quite understand. But the sympathy and humor with which she had accepted her father’s company vanished under the old double pine tree. Here Sewell McAdam possessed himself of her hand, unobtrusively he made it appear on two occasions. On the third, however, Ina had to pull to release it.
“Mr. McAdam, I fear I do understand you,” she said. “But you don’t understand me. I’m not in the habit of letting young men hold my hand.”
“Aw, be sociable, Ina. What’s a little hand holding?”
