Ivy stood as if petrified. When Robin put out his hand to her she shrank.
“So—oh,” he breathed. “It jars you like that, does it?” and walked past her into the kitchen.
His food was on the table. He set himself to eat. It might be a long stretch between meals, he thought grimly. But beyond a bit of bread and meat and a cup of coffee food seemed to choke him. He was calm enough. He had no more regret than he would have had at crushing a snake’s ugly head under his boot heel. But he quivered inside. He sat alone by the table listening to the mutter of voices in the other room. He had played the game. Because he had played a desperate trump to take the winning trick, he must lose. He felt that. Mayne most of all feared for his security as a little cowman tolerated in the heart of a cattle king’s domain. Ivy—he couldn’t make her out. Something seemed to be slowly freezing inside Robin.
Ivy came out of the other room at last and stood looking at him as he rolled a cigarette and lit it, nursing his chin in one palm as he blew smoke.
“It’s awful, Robin,” she sighed. “I wish I’d never gone to that dance. What’ll you do?”
“Hit the trail,” he answered.
Ivy stood still. She didn’t offer to kiss him. She seemed deep in some consideration which had, Robin felt forlornly, very little to do with him.
“Will you go with me?” Some obscure impulse prompted the question. “I might never come back.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she whispered.
Then she flung herself at Robin, clung to him. She buried her face in his shoulder, shaking with sobs.