The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold Part 5

Olive laughed and gave Jack's hand a conciliatory squeeze, for Jack's face had flushed as it usually did when Jean made any such teasing suggestion. The truth of the matter was that Jack hated to think there was any real difference between friends.h.i.+p with a boy or a girl, and Jean, though she only joked about the subject at present, cherished a very different idea.

"It is much more important that we make ourselves agreeable to Mrs.

Harmon and her daughter," Jack answered, with her nose in the air, as she sat down in the car, but Jean merely lifted her pretty shoulders and gave a sly glance at Olive. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Ralston,"

she apologized. "I forgot you were a man-hater, unless one leaves Frank Kent out of the question." This was a hateful speech of Jean's and she deserved the speedy punishment she received.

The three ranch girls found the hotel they sought and were given the number of Mrs. Harmon's sitting room. They hesitated for a minute outside her door. "I don't know why I feel so nervous about going in, just as though something dreadful was going to happen," Jack whispered softly. "I don't even like to knock."

"I know what is troubling you, Jack," Olive murmured gently. "None of us has confessed it to the other, but I believe we are nervous about meeting Elizabeth Harmon. We don't know how ill she is or whether she is even able to walk, and we are afraid we may do or say the wrong thing."

"I am sure you won't, Olive," Jack returned, as she summoned courage to knock at the closed door. The girls thought they heard a faint response from the inside, and walked slowly into the room, hesitating for a moment because of the sudden change from daylight to almost complete darkness. The blinds at the windows were drawn closely down, and there was no light except that which shone from two rose-colored candles that burned on the tall mantel-piece. No one seemed to be in the room as Jean started blindly forward. Olive put out her hand to stop her, but she was not in time, for at the same instant Jean plunged blindly into a small table loaded with teacups, and the quiet room echoed with the noise of cras.h.i.+ng china and embarra.s.sed exclamations from poor Jean.

The next moment Jack and Olive saw a fragile figure rise up from an immense leather chair and swing herself toward them on a single crutch.

She was so thin and delicate and dressed in such an exquisite clinging white gown that she looked like the ghost of a girl, the only color about whom was the ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ning red-gold hair that hung in a loose cloud over her shoulders.

"Oh, I am so sorry and ashamed!" Jean murmured miserably, her brown eyes filling with tears, as she surveyed the havoc she had wrought.

"Please don't mind; it was all my fault." Elizabeth Harmon put out a small, hot hand and touched Jean's fingers shyly. "I know I ought not to have had the room so dark when you came in, but I have a fancy for meeting people for the first time in the soft candle light."

Elizabeth spoke the last words gently and Jack tried to conceal it, but her hostess knew that the girl with the sympathetic warm gray eyes understood why she preferred to meet strangers in a semi-darkness.

Elizabeth was not a pretty girl. Her eyes were too pale a blue and she looked too ill for beauty; besides, her face had a wilful and unhappy expression, and yet, in spite of these defects, she had a curious kind of grace and charm.

Jean and Olive were trying vainly to pick up the shattered teacups, so it was Jack who first saw Elizabeth Harmon's dilemma. She had walked across the room toward them, but she was not strong enough to get back to her chair alone and she was too sensitive to ask for help. Jack put her arm about her hostess, without waiting for her permission, and led her to a chair, then she sat down on a little spindle-legged stool near her, feeling shy and confused.

"You shouldn't have helped me; I hate to have people do things for me,"

Elizabeth remarked rudely. "I could have walked back to my chair perfectly well by myself. Please do sit down, everybody; you make me feel dreadfully nervous. Mother would join us if she knew you were here."

The ranch girls were embarra.s.sed by their hostess' ungracious manner, but they could not be really angry with her. Jean and Olive wondered why she didn't let her mother know of their arrival. Again Jack guessed the truth. Elizabeth could not get across the room to the bell and would not ask one of them to ring it for her. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Elizabeth bent over toward Jack, whispering softly: "Forgive my being so hateful, and thank you for helping me. I have wanted dreadfully to know you girls, but I'm afraid you'll think I am so spoiled you won't have anything to do with me. Will you please ring the bell?"

Jack moved quietly across the room, but before she reached the bell the door flew open, admitting a big fellow with flas.h.i.+ng white teeth. He stopped in amazement at the sight of the three visitors. Jean and Jack recognized him at once as the young man who had stared at Olive so curiously after running into her on the street.

CHAPTER VI

A CURIOUS RESEMBLANCE

"I'll be--I beg your pardon," Donald Harmon apologized hurriedly.

"Sister, I didn't know your visitors had come." He held out his hand to Jack, who was nearest him. "I ought to have known who you were when I met you an hour ago, but I was a little confused over something," he said.

Elizabeth Harmon introduced her brother to the girls, whose names she had now learned. When Donald spoke to Olive he tried in vain to hide his puzzled expression, and again she dropped her gaze before his as though she did not wish him to see her face. Olive was always shy, but to-day she seemed more so than usual, and she had a peculiar fas.h.i.+on, like some flowers, of folding herself about with little leaves and tendrils of reserve to hide her real self from the outside world.

Donald Harmon sat down next Jack and immediately across from Olive, but Jack made no effort to open a conversation with him, for she did not like him and did object to the odd way in which he gazed at Olive.

"What is your friend's name?" Donald inquired immediately.

"Olive," Jack returned in a non-committal fas.h.i.+on.

"But Olive what? I have a special reason for wis.h.i.+ng to know," the young fellow protested impatiently. Olive and Jean were talking with Elizabeth and were not observing Jack and her companion.

For the fleeting part of a moment Jack hesitated, "Olive--why, Olive Ralston," she replied quietly. "I thought you knew our name was Ralston."

"I did," Donald answered. "Please don't think I am mad, but I thought for a second she might have another name. Have you ever heard the theory that we all have a double somewhere in the world? I want you to look closely at my mother when she comes in. Your sister is enough like her to be her own child, though of course there is a difference in their coloring and expressions and perhaps other details that I have not noticed, but when I saw your sister on the street to-day I was overcome by their likeness." At this moment Donald Harmon, hearing his mother's voice in the hall, quickly turned on the electric lights.

Jacqueline Ralston caught her breath before the strange vista of possibilities that Donald Harmon's suggestion opened to her imagination.

Never had she ceased to wonder at the mystery of Olive's birth. "Has your mother ever been out west before?" Jack asked hastily. And Donald only had time to answer, "Never in her life," when Mrs. Harmon entered the sitting room.

Jack's first emotion was one of intense and selfish relief. Mrs. Harmon and Olive did not look in the least alike--the son's idea had been absurd. Mrs. Harmon's eyes were blue and Olive's black, her complexion was fair and Olive's dark. It was true Mrs. Harmon did have black hair, though it was now slightly tinged with gray, and it grew in a point like Olive's in the center of her low, broad forehead, but there was nothing remarkable in this little point of resemblance. Jack thought Mrs. Harmon beautiful and the first real society woman she had ever seen. Her manner was gracious and friendly, yet Jack knew instinctively that few people were ever allowed to fathom her real feelings.

"Surely you see the likeness," Donald whispered boyishly. "It isn't that their features are so alike, it is something I can hardly explain to you if you don't see it yourself. I have always thought my mother the most beautiful person in the world, but your sister is nearly as pretty."

Jack frowned, for she did not care to have Donald Harmon discuss Olive in this outspoken fas.h.i.+on.

Mrs. Harmon was sitting between Jean and Olive, listening to Jean's apology for the broken teacups. Like most older people, she was attracted by her piquant manner and appearance. So far she had paid no particular attention to Olive, hereby including her with the other in a general greeting.

Donald strode over to his sister's chair and murmured something under his breath. Elizabeth flushed, stared across the room and shook her head pettishly. It was one of the trials of her life that, though she bore no resemblance to her beautiful mother, her brother was supposed to look like her.

Olive and Mrs. Harmon had their heads close together. "I say, mother,"

Don broke out impetuously, "for the life of me I can't see why no one else speaks of it. Miss Olive Ralston looks ten times more like you than either Elizabeth or I do."

Mrs. Harmon turned to face Olive. "I wish I thought so, Don," she answered girlishly: "Miss Ralston is so pretty." She took one of Olive's hands, but Olive was so embarra.s.sed at being the center of all eyes that she blushed furiously and gazed steadfastly down at her lap.

"I am sorry not to agree with you, Don, dear," Mrs. Harmon answered a moment later. "This Miss Ralston looks like a foreign girl, an Italian or Spaniard, and I am a thorough New Yorker. Were your father and mother western people?" she asked Olive.

Olive's face paled and her lips quivered. Would she have courage to announce before these strangers that she had no idea who her mother and father were nor from whence they had come? Before she could find her voice Jack rushed blindly to the rescue. "Olive is our adopted sister, Mrs. Harmon," she explained briefly; "but we do not like people to know it, so we rarely speak of her past. You must forgive her if she does not answer you."

With perfect good taste Mrs. Harmon immediately changed the conversation to another subject, but Jack, who was watching her closely, saw that every now and then she gazed intently at Olive. If any odd fancy crossed her mind or any half-forgotten memory, she gave no sign of it. Once she leaned back wearily after Elizabeth had contradicted her, and Jack had an uncomfortable moment. Perhaps Mrs. Harmon did suggest Olive when her eyes were down and her face was in repose, but she banished the idea as a ridiculous one. Donald, however, clung obstinately to his first impression and devoted the rest of his time to trying to make Olive talk.

Quite naturally the group of people had separated themselves into pairs.

Jack, who was so strong and independent, who showed vigor and joy of living in every movement of her body, was deeply touched by Elizabeth Harmon's weakness. She recognized that the girl was spoiled and that she might be subject to impossible moods, but she was so sorry for her that she didn't care about her faults. Indeed, she said to herself that if ever she had the same misfortune to endure she would be far more difficult than Elizabeth.

"I wish my father would come," Elizabeth said to Jack for the third time in the last ten minutes. "You see, he and I are chums, and mother and Don rather hit it off better together. Mother is awfully good to me and lets me do whatever I please, but she has never been able to forgive my not being good-looking like Don."

Before Jack could show Elizabeth how her speech had shocked her, Mr.

Harmon's entrance brought a new atmosphere into the room. He was a typical Wall Street broker, well dressed, with a heavy-set figure, reddish hair that was turning white, and a curt, businesslike manner. He spoke politely to his wife and her guests, but it was plain to everybody present that he thought only of his daughter. Jack believed she would have disliked him except for his devotion to Elizabeth. He never seemed unconscious of her for a moment and his expression softened each time he spoke to her. Otherwise he appeared as a shrewd, hard man who would get the best of a bargain whenever he had the chance. Standing at the back of his daughter's chair, he at once asked Jack a dozen questions about Rainbow Lodge--what vegetables were raised in their garden, whether they were included in the rent of the Lodge, what the water supply was for the house. It was evident that he meant to get as much as possible for his money, and Jack wondered if the richest people were not often those who tried to drive the hardest bargains.

Only once did Mr. Harmon's manner change. This was when Elizabeth put her hand on his sleeve and begged him to ask Jack if there was a pony on the ranch that she could have to drive.

"I'm not a rich man--far from it," Mr. Harmon remarked quickly; "but if you will let my daughter have one of your horses for the summer, I will pay you anything in reason. There is nothing in the world I care for so deeply as her health and happiness."

Jack shook her head. From her position near the sick girl she could see how Elizabeth's eyes glistened at the prospect of being allowed to drive herself. "I'm so sorry," Jack answered. "If any one of us had a pony that would be of any pleasure to Elizabeth, of course we would lend it to her with pleasure, but you see we only ride horseback at the ranch and have never owned any kind of cart. The ponies are not broken for driving."

As soon as her speech was over Jack realized that Elizabeth Harmon resented her mention of their horseback riding, because it was a pleasure impossible for her, and that Mr. Harmon was in such close sympathy with his daughter that he also was displeased. But Jack, in spite of her hot temper, was not offended. "I tell you what we might do, Miss Harmon: suppose you get your father to send a governess' cart, or whatever you wish to use, to the Rainbow Ranch right away. Then when we go back I will make one of our cowboys begin to accustom one of our ponies to driving. Your brother can see that it is all right, and perhaps we may possibly have a chance to go over the ranch together. I would like to show you the places we love best, before we start on our trip. I am sure ranch life and the bracing western air will do your daughter a great deal of good, Mr. Harmon," Jack said, rising to give Jean and Olive the signal for saying farewell.

"I wish you weren't going away, Miss Ralston--Jack," Elizabeth Harmon burst out impulsively. "If you would stay at home with me I would be sure to get well."