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 He had often talked to her of ranch life—so new and interesting a theme in those early days, before the cowboy had been tamed into print. He told her of the life of adventure and hardship which he had known, of his vast herds of cattle, and his wide domains. It seemed to her as though this dominion over men and over beasts had conferred upon him a certain patent of nobility, and she listened with kindling attention to all he had to say. But if he seemed to her to be something of a hero, it was the hero of a realm as remote from her as were the lands of the Orient or the ages of the past. And because of the remoteness and foreignness of her interest hitherto, because of her perfect sense of aloofness from it all, she had listened without suspicion or constraint.

They were walking home together from the skating pond one afternoon, their two pairs of skates rattling gayly together in her companion's hand, making a pleasant metallic accompaniment to his narration.

Suddenly he interrupted himself to say: "Mary, you would like ranch life immensely. I am sure of it. Don't you think you would?"

His words were harmless enough, but the sudden pleading urgency of his manner, and something new and intensely personal in his tone, startled her, and she instantly bristled.

"Oh, yes!" she said. "I've no doubt I should like it if I were a man. But it must be a hideous life for a woman."