"Which gates? You are not precise," said my companion, and laughed pleasantly when, smiling, too, I answered, "One might almost say--of Paradise!"
"It must be the Moslem's paradise, then," she said. "Still, I hardly fancy a stalwart prairie rancher would pose well as the Peri, and, by way of consolation, you can remember that there are disappointments within those gates, and those who have acquired knowledge beyond them sometimes envy the illusions of those without. No, you have not changed much in some respects, Mr. Ormesby. You must talk to my sister Lucille--she will agree with you."
Her manner was very gracious, in spite of the badinage; but there was a faint trace of weariness and sardonic humor in her merriment which chilled me. The dark-haired girl I remembered had displayed a power of sympathy and quick enthusiasm which had apparently vanished from my present companion.
"I am curious to hear if you have verified the optimistic views you once professed," she added languidly.
I laughed a little dryly. Being younger then, and led on by a very winsome maiden's interest, I had talked with perhaps a little less than becoming modesty of the possibilities open to a resolute man in the new lands of the West, and laid it down as an axiom that determination was a sure password to success.
"You should be merciful. That was in my callow days," I said. "Nevertheless, with a few more reservations, I believe it is possible for those who can hope and hold on to realize their ambition in this country, whether it be the evolution of a prosperous homestead from a strip of Government land and a sod hovel--or more desirable things. The belief is excusable, because one may see the proof of it almost every day. I even fancied, when in England, that you agreed with me."
There was a faint mischievous sparkle in Miss Haldane's eyes, but she answered with becoming gravity: "Wisdom, as you seem to intimate, comes with age, and it is allowable to change one's opinions. Now it seems to me that all things happen, more often against our will than as the result of it, when the invisible powers behind us decree. For instance, who could have anticipated yesterday that we two should meet to-night at table, or who could say whether this assembly, brought about by a blizzard, may not be the first scene of either a tragedy or a comedy?"