From
time to time they glanced down the lonely canyon, losing itself in the
afternoon shadow. Nevertheless Mrs. Ashwood's preoccupation with Nature
did not preclude a human curiosity to hear something more of John
Milton's quarrel with his father. There was certainly nothing of the
prodigal son about him; there was no precocious evil knowledge in his
frank eyes; no record of excesses in his healthy, fresh complexion;
no unwholesome or disturbed tastes in what she had seen of his rural
preferences and understanding of natural beauty. To have attempted any
direct questioning that would have revealed his name and identity would
have obliged her to speak of herself as his father's guest. She began
indirectly; he had said he had been a reporter, and he was still a
chronicler of this strange life. He had of course heard of many cases
of family feuds and estrangements? Her brother had told her of some
dreadful vendettas he had known in the Southwest, and how whole families
had been divided. Since she had been here she had heard of odd cases of
brothers meeting accidentally after long and unaccounted separations;
of husbands suddenly confronted with wives they had deserted; of fathers
encountering discarded sons!
John Milton's face betrayed no uneasy consciousness. If anything it was
beginning to glow with a boyish admiration of the grace and intelligence
of the fair speaker, that was perhaps heightened by an assumption of
half coquettish discomfiture.
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