“No, you didn’t. You knew nothing about me then. I was no more to you than Lardo the Cook or Baldy or Rambo the Bouncer.”
“Does a person have to know all about another before she can like his looks—and—and other things about him? I’m rather an instinctive person.”
“Yes, but you don’t trust to instinct altogether. I think you had a reason for offering me friendship.”
“Perhaps I had—then,” she admitted after a little. “But it’s been different since. It was silly, I suppose—stupid. But I liked you almost at once; and when I like a person I’m not slow to show it.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Otherwise I’d not be here with you now. But tell me what was the beginning of it all.”
Another pause. Then: “I’d rather not—just yet.”
“All right. I’ll not press you for an answer. But I imagine it’s hardly necessary. I think I know.”
“But you can’t!”
“Oh, yes, I can. I think I almost knew even that first day. But now about seeing you in the future. I want to, of course, and I think you want me to. I believe I’ll walk over to the ranch to-morrow evening and call on you. Would there be a great upheaval?”
“I’m afraid there would be—afterward. You see, Pa Squawtooth is pretty much of a snob. I have to admit it. He’s been getting pretty well off the last few years; and now this railroad will make him rich, he thinks. For my part, I have no desire to be wealthy—but that has nothing to do with the situation. Pa’s only a money snob, though. He’s democratic enough other ways, and has always encouraged me to be the same. That is, up until lately. Since I’ve grown up I notice he doesn’t approve of many of the things I do. We have dances around here sometimes. I used always to go with Ed Chazzy or ‘Lucky’ Gilfoyle or Splicer Kurtz, or some other desert rat, and he’d say nothing. But now he takes me himself, or tags along; and if I’m with any particular vaquero two minutes longer than I’m with any of the others he nearly strokes his whispers out. In fact, he’s told me outright that, since he’s becoming rich, I mustn’t be too free with the cow-punchers and all that. Now, if ‘Limpy’ Pardoe, for instance, were to strike it rich in a gold claim that he does assessment work on every year, why, I’ll bet pa would let me dance with him. So you see what kind of a snob he is—just a money snob, not a folks snob. And it’s so new I haven’t got used to it. It came on him all of a sudden when beef sold so high, and the railroad began to boom up. He’ll get over it. I hope so, anyway. So you see—well, I don’t know whether he’d like you or not. That is, admit he liked you. And he’d probably ask me not to invite you to come again. Then I’d have to meet you like this, if I saw you at all, while now I just do it.”