This last, was thrown out for a bait, to get Mr. Bowles to extend himself, but it failed of its effect. A somber smile took the place of the expected frenzy and he muttered half to himself as he gazed out of the window.
"What's that you say?" she questioned sharply.
"Oh, pardon me," he exclaimed, recovering himself with a sudden access of manner; "I was talking to myself, don't you know? But, really, I am pretty full of Wordsworth; so, if you don't mind, we'll talk about something else. My aunt, you know, is a great devotee of all the nature poets, and I attend the meetings to please her. It's an awful bore sometimes, too, I assure you; that's why your face was so welcome to me when I chanced to see you at the club-rooms. That lecturer was such a conceited ass and those women were so besotted in their admiration of him that I looked around to see if there was a single sane and reasonable creature in the room—and there you were, as stern and uncompromising as an angel and—oh, well, I formed a different conception of angels, right there. You were so delightfully humorous too, when Mrs. Melvine introduced us—and, well, really, Miss Lee, you are partly responsible for my leaving New York. I never fully realized before what our Western country must be like; I never dreamed that there was a place to flee to when the conventions of society grew irksome; but when you told me of your ranch, and the cowboys, and all the wonderful happenings of that wild and carefree life I—I made up my mind to chuck the whole thing, don't you know, and strike out for myself."
"Oho!" breathed Dixie Lee, squinting down her eyes and regarding him with a shrewd smile. "So you're running away to be a cowboy, eh? Going West to fight the Indians! Well, well! But let me ask you one question, Mr. Bowles—if that's your name—I trust you don't plan to begin your depredations in my part of the country; because if you do——"
"Oh, my dear Miss Lee," protested Mr. Bowles, "you have quite a mistaken idea, I assure you. Really, now, I hope you give me credit for more discretion than that. The fact is, I have an old college friend on a ranch in California and, though I have not taken my aunt entirely into confidence, I am really going out to make him a visit. It's all very well, you know, to read about sunsets in Wordsworth, but why not go out into the Far West and see the sun set indeed? That's what I say, but of course I would not offend her—she simply thinks my health is failing and I need a Western trip."
"Oh!" said Dixie Lee quietly. "So you've got an aunt, too, eh? What did you say her name was?"
"Why, Mrs.—er—Bowles!"
"But why Mrs. Er-Bowles?" queried Dixie May, relentlessly. "Why not Mrs. Bowles straight? Now, you know, Mr. Bowles, it looks very much to me as if——"
"Her former name was Earl," interposed Mr. Bowles suavely, and carefully leaving out the "r." "My father's brother married a very dear friend of ours, a Mrs. Earl, and I sometimes call her so still—inadvertently, you know. I am an orphan now and Mrs. Earl—ah, Bowles—has taken me as a son. But you can readily understand how a young man of my age and disposition might not always fall in with a somewhat elderly lady's views of life, especially in regard to cultural influences, and while I love her very dearly and wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world——"
"Yes, it's too bad about you!" observed Dixie Lee heartlessly; and then for quite a while she looked out of the car window as drab and dirty tenements slipped by and the train plunged into a tunnel.