Robin’s mood changed in the flick of an eyelash. If Ivy wanted to—well, let her! He strode over to May.
“I thought you were going to beat a retreat,” she murmured, when they were on the floor. “You aren’t shy, are you?”
“You don’t know me very well,” Robin replied. “The only time you ever saw me I didn’t act very shy, did I?”
“That was different,” she laughed. “A cow-puncher on a horse, on his own ground—that is different. Some of these nice-looking boys act as if they weren’t sure it was safe to approach me.”
“A fellow hates to get turned down,” Robin observed. “You’re a big, strange toad in the puddle—oh, darn it, I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s a perfectly proper simile,” she hastened to assure him. “I know what you mean. I am. But no one need be afraid of splashing me. I like to dance. I like fun as well as any other girl in these hills.”
“I expect you do,” Robin somehow found it easy to talk to her. “But you cut a lot of ice in this country, or your dad does, and it’s the same thing. I expect after the kind of dances you’re used to and the people you’ve lived among this don’t exactly look like no Fourth of July celebration to you. A cow-puncher may be wild and woolly but he’s no fool. He knows when he’s outclassed—as far as a girl is concerned.”
“You are a rather wide-awake young man in some respects,” she said thoughtfully. Then after a momentary silence she changed the subject. “Who is the pretty little dark-haired girl you brought?”
“That’s Ivy Mayne.”
“Oh, so that’s Ivy. She doesn’t seem to know me. Well, I don’t suppose she would.”