Frieda put down her cup and laughed a little uncertainly. "Oh, the Rainbow Ranch is the name of my own home. I wonder if I have ever told you that?" she inquired. "But you are mistaken if you think I have had the things I wish." For, of course, Frieda did not believe she had been a fortunate person. So few people ever do believe this of themselves, until misfortune makes them learn through contrast. Later, she read a chapter in the Bible and the war news from one of the morning papers. Then, before six o'clock, she started to return to Kent House. Frieda walked quickly as the distance was not short. Moreover, she had never entirely recovered from the fright of her unexpected encounter with her husband several months before. Yet, since then, she had not only never seen him again, but never heard anything about him, except the scant information of his departure to France, which she had acquired through Frank Kent. Frieda did think—no matter what the difference between them—that her husband might have let her know that he was at least alive and well. Of course she was a selfish, cold-hearted person, as her family and[115] undoubtedly her own husband believed her to be. However, one could be interested in the welfare of even a comparative stranger in war times. [115] Later, after Frieda left the village, she passed by the little house which her old friend had tried to involve in a mystery in order to supply her with gossip. The house was set in a yard by itself. The lights were lighted and the curtains drawn down, but, as she hurried by, either a woman's or a man's figure made a dark shadow upon the closed blind. [116] [116] CHAPTER IX Jack and Frank were walking in front, with Olive and Frieda strolling a little more slowly behind them, and the rest of the company followed in scattered groups. At the beginning of her marriage the English Sundays had been a trial to Jack. They were so much more quiet, so much more sedate than those of her rather too unconventional girlhood in Wyoming. Then they had sometimes held church in the open air, or if they wished to go into the nearest town, a big wagon was loaded with as many persons as could be persuaded from the ranch, and ordinarily they stopped on the way back and had
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