He showed her everything--the flocks
of ewes, muttons and grazing lambs, the dipping vats, the shearing
pens, the uncouth merino rams in their little pasture, the water-tanks
prepared against the summer drought--giving account of his stewardship
with a boyish enthusiasm that never flagged.
Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was
the same, and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she
ever saw of him now. Where was his sentimentality--those old,
varying moods of impetuous love-making, of fanciful, quixotic
devotion, of heart-breaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness
and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive one, his
temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew that, besides
being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had cultivated
tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered with
colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and
once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But
now--and she could not avoid the conclusion--Teddy had barricaded
against her every side of himself except one--the side that showed the
manager of the Rancho de las Sombras and a jolly chum who had forgiven
and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of Mr.
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