But--here she was--a paragon of feminine promptitude--already standing
in the doorway, accurately gloved and booted, and wearing a demure gray
hat that modestly crowned her decorously elegant figure.
They crossed the plaza side by side, in the still garish sunlight that
seemed to mock the scant shade of the youthful eucalyptus trees, and
presently fell in with the stream of people going in their direction.
The former daughters of Sidon, the Billingses, the Peterses, and
Wingates, were there bourgeoning and expanding in the glare of their new
prosperity, with silk and gold; there were newer faces still, and pretty
ones,--for Tasajara as a "Cow County" had attracted settlers with large
families,--and there were already the contrasting types of East and
West. Many turned to look after the tall figure of the daughter of the
Founder of Tasajara,--a spectacle lately rare to the town; a few glanced
at her companion, equally noticeable as a stranger. Thanks, however, to
some judicious preliminary advertising from the hotel clerk, Peters, and
Daniel Harcourt himself, by the time Grant and Miss Harcourt had reached
the Hall his name and fame were already known, and speculation had
already begun whether this new stroke of Harcourt's shrewdness might not
unite Clementina to a renowned and profitable partner.
The Hall was in one of the further and newly opened suburbs, and its
side and rear windows gave immediately upon the outlying and illimitable
plain of Tasajara.
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