"A lover?" he asked boldly.
Instantly her eyes came to his. "You really do think bad of me, then?" Her tone was reproachful. "You think that when I said people considered me a very bad woman they meant baddest bad, and that they considered right?"
"No," he corrected. "I didn't stop to think. What I said just jumped into my head. I'm curious about you—that's all."
"I'm not going to tell you my story," she declared. "You ask Kneedrock. He'll tell you that I shot my husband to marry another man, and that the other man begged to be excused. Kneedrock's very entertaining when he begins to be confidential about me."
"How can you joke about such things?"
"I joke about everything. It's my way of getting on."
"But such an awful tale!"
"Oh, dreadful!" she said, easily.
He felt a bit uncertain and his laugh showed it. "The other man was an idiot," he told her.
"Quite so," she assented.