He waited patiently. He was more than willing to tell her everything he knew, or could make up to please her, but he had not the slightest idea what she wanted. Whatever it was, he certainly intended to make the effort of his life to give her.
"I am Constance Starr," said Connie, still more abashed by the unfaltering presence of this curious creature, who, she fully realized at last, was quite human enough for any literary purpose. "And this is my brother-in-law, Mr. Duke, and my sister, Mrs. Duke."
"My name is Prince Ingram."
David shook hands with him cordially, with smiling eyes, and asked him to sit down so Connie might ask her questions in comfort. They all took chairs, and Prince waited. Connie racked her brain. Five minutes ago there had been ten thousand things she yearned to know about this strange existence. Now, unfairly, she could not think of one. It seemed to her she knew all there was to know about them. They looked into each other"s eyes, men and women, as men and women do in Chicago.
They touched hands, and the blood quickened, the old Chicago style.
They talked plain English, they liked pretty clothes, they worshiped good horses, they lived on the boundless plains. What on earth was there to ask? Quite suddenly, Connie understood them perfectly.
But Prince realized that he was not making good. His one claim to admission in her presence was his ability to tell her what she wanted to know. He had got to tell her things,--but what things? My stars, what did she want to know? How old he was, where he was born, if he was married,--oh, by George, she didn"t think he was married, did she?
"I am not married," he said abruptly. David looked around at him in surprise, and Carol"s eyes opened widely. But Connie, with what must have been literary intuition, understood. She nodded at him and smiled as she asked, "Have you always lived out here?"
"No." He straightened his shoulders and drew a deep breath. Here was a starter, it would be his own fault if he could not keep talking the rest of the night. "No, I came out from Columbus when I was eighteen.
Came for my health." He squared his shoulders again, and laughed a big deep laugh which made Connie marvel that there should be such big deep laughs in the world.
"My father was a doctor. He sent me out, and I got a job punching time in the mines at Cripple Creek. I met some stock men, and one of them offered me a job, and I came out and got in with them. Then I got hold of a bit of land and began gathering up stock for myself. I stayed with the Sparker outfit six years, and then my father died. I took the money and got my start, and--why, that is all." He stopped in astonishment. He had been sure his story would last several hours. He had begun at the very start, his illness at eighteen, and here he was right up to the present, and--he rubbed his knee despairingly. There must be something else. There had to be something else. What under the sun had he been doing all these fourteen years in the ranges?
"Don"t you ever wish to go back?" Connie prompted kindly.
"Back to Columbus? I went twice to see my father. He had a private sanatorium. My booming voice gave his nervous patients prostrations, and father thought my clothes were not sanitary because they could not be sterilized. Are you going to stay here for good?"
It was very risky to ask, he knew, but he had to find out.
"I am visiting my sister in Denver. We just came here for the Frontier Days," said Connie primly.
"There is another Frontier Week at Sterling," he said eagerly. "A fine one, better than this. It isn"t far over there. You would get more material at Sterling, I think. Can"t you go on up?"
"I have been away from Chicago four weeks now," said Connie. "In exactly two weeks I must be at my desk again."
"Chicago is not a healthy town," he said, in a voice that would have done credit to his father, the medical man. "Very unhealthy. It is not literary either. Out west is the place for literature. All the great writers come west. Western stories are the big sellers. There"s Ralph Connor, and Rex Beach, and Jack London and--and--"
"But I am not a great writer," Connie interrupted modestly. "I am just a common little filler-in in the ranks of a publishing house. I"m only a beginner."
"That is because you stick to Chicago," he said eloquently. "You come out here, out in the open, where things are wide and free, and you can see a thousand miles at one stretch. You come out here, and you"ll be as great as any of "em,--greater!"
The loud clamor of the dinner bell interrupted his impa.s.sioned outburst and he relapsed into stricken silence.
"Well, we must go to dinner before the supply runs out," said David, rising slowly. "Come along, Julia. We are glad to have met you, Mr.
Ingram." He held out his thin, blue-veined hand. "We"ll see you again."
Prince looked hopelessly at Connie"s back, for her face was already turned toward the dining-room. How cold and infinitely distant that tall, straight, tailored back appeared.
"Ask him to eat with us," Connie hissed, out of one corner of her lip, in David"s direction.
David hesitated, looking at her doubtfully. Connie nudged him with emphasis.
Well, what could David do? He might wash his hands of the whole irregular business, and he did. Connie was a writer, she must have material, but in his opinion Connie was too young to be literary. She should have been older, or uglier, or married. Literature is not safe for the young and charming. Connie nudged him again. Plainly if he did not do as she said, she was going to do it herself.
David turned to the brown-faced, sad-eyed son of the mountain ranges, and said:
"Come along and have dinner with us, won"t you?"
Carol pursed up her lips warningly, but Prince Ingram, in his eagerness, nearly picked David up bodily in his hurry to get the little party settled before some one spoiled it all.
He wanted to handle Connie"s chair for her, he knew just how it was done. But suppose he pushed her clear under the table, or jerked it entirely from under her, or did something worse than either? A girl like Connie ought to have those things done for her. Well, he would let it go this time. So he looked after Julia, and settled her so comfortably, and was so a.s.siduously attentive to her that he quite won her heart, and before the meal was over she said he might come and live with them and be her grandpa, if he wanted.
"Grandpa," he said facetiously. "Do I look as old as that? Can"t I be something better than a grandpa?"
"Well, only one papa"s the style," said Julia doubtfully. "And you are too big to be a baby, and--"
"Can"t I be your uncle?" Then, glancing at Connie with a sudden realization of the only possible way the uncle-ship could be accomplished, he blushed.
"Yes, an uncle is better," said Connie imperturbably. "You must remember, Julia dear, that men are very, very sensitive about their ages, and you must always give them credit for youth."
"I see," said Julia. And Prince wondered how old Connie thought he was, his hair was a little thin, not from age--always had been that way--and he was as brown as a Zulu, but it was only sunburn. He"d figure out a way of letting her know he was only thirty-two before the evening was over.
"Are you going over to the street to-night?" he asked of David, but not caring half a cent what David did.
"I am afraid I can"t. I am not very good on my feet any more. I am sorry, the girls would enjoy it."
"Carol and I might go alone," suggested Connie bravely. "Every one does out here. We wouldn"t mind it."
"I will not go to a street carnival and leave David," protested Carol.
"It would be rather interesting." Connie looked tentatively from the window.
Prince swallowed in anguish. She ought to go, he told them; she really needs to go. The evenings are so much fuller of literary material than day-times. And the dancing--
"I do not dance," said Connie. "My father is a minister."
"You do not dance! Why, that"s funny. I don"t either. That is, not exactly,-- Oh, once in a while just to fill in." Then the latter part of her remark reached his inner consciousness. "A minister. By George!"
"My husband is one, too," said Carol.
Prince looked helplessly about him. Then he said faintly, "I--I am not. But my father wanted me to be a preacher. He sent me to Princeton, and I stuck it out nearly ten weeks. That is why they call me Prince, short for Princeton. I am the only real college man on the range, they say."
"The street fair must be interesting," Connie went back to the main idea.
"Yes indeed, the crowds, the side-shows--I mean the exhibits, and the lotteries, and--I am sure you never saw so much literary material crowded into two blocks in your life."
"Oh, well, I don"t mind. Maybe some other night we can go." Connie was sweetly resigned.
"I should be very glad,--if you don"t mind,--I haven"t anything else to do,--and I can take good care of you."
"Oh, that is just lovely. And maybe you will give me some more stories. Isn"t that fine, David? It is so kind of you, Mr. Ingram. I am sure I shall find lots of material."
David kicked Carol warningly beneath the table. "You must go too, Carol. You have never seen such a thing, and it will do you good. I am not the selfish brute you try to make me. You girls go along with Mr. Ingram and I will put Julia to bed and wait for you on the porch."