"I'm not apologizing, you understand, and I'm not saying anything about the rights of the ranchers or of my employers, one or the other. I don't care about either. I'm just concerned with my own business."
"That is to say, the railway's," Sheila commented.
"I'm trying to point out that I'm a hired man, with no personal interest. But of course I'll do what I'm paid to do—and more. I never saw the time I didn't give full value for every dollar of my pay."
"I don't question it," said Sheila.
"You think I'm talking too much about myself," he said quickly. "That's so. I'm sorry. You people have treated me well, no matter what you thought, and I appreciate it. I've enjoyed the evening very much. I wonder"—he hesitated for a moment—"I wonder if you'd mind my riding over here once in a while?"
"Of course not—if you care to come," Sheila replied. Intuitively she divined that she had interested him, and she guessed by his manner that it was not his custom to be interested in young women. Apart from the ranchers' grievance against the corporation he represented, she had no reason for refusal. She rather liked his downrightness. Casey Dunne had said that he was a bit of a bully, but not a bluff. His extreme frankness, while it amused her, seemed genuine.
"Thank you!" he said. "I don't flatter myself that you want me particularly, and I'm quite satisfied with the bare permission. I'm not entertaining or pleasant, and I know it. I've been busy all my life. No time for—for—well, no time for anything but work. But this little job isn't going to keep me more than half busy. I've done all the hard work of it now."
"I didn't know it was so nearly finished."
"I mean I've been over the ground and over the figures, and I know all that is to be done. Now it's merely a question of bossing a gang. A foreman could do that."
Sheila could find no fault with the last statement. Obviously it was a fact. But the tone more than the words was self-assertive, even arrogant. She was unreasonably annoyed.