“I seen from the first that you were the real article.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said absently, still lost in thought.
“Why, that was a compliment I handed out to you,” returned the Girl with a pained look on her face.
“Oh!” he ejaculated with a faint little smile.
Now the Girl, who had drawn up her chair close to his, leaned over and said in a low, confidential voice:
“Your kind don’t prevail much here. I can tell—I got what you call a quick eye.”
As might be expected Johnson flushed guiltily at this remark. No different, for that matter, would have acted many a man whose conscience was far clearer.
“Oh, I’m afraid that men like me prevail—prevail, as you say,—almost everywhere,” he said, laying such stress on the words that it would seem almost impossible for anyone not to see that they were shot through with self-depreciation.
The Girl gave him a playful dig with her elbow.
“Go on! What are you givin’ me! O’ course they don’t...!” She laughed outright; but the next instant checking herself, went on with absolute ingenuousness: “Before I went on that trip to Monterey I tho’t Rance here was the genuine thing in a gent, but the minute I kind o’ glanced over you on the road I—I seen he wasn’t.” She stopped, a realisation having suddenly been borne in upon her that perhaps she was laying her heart too bare to him. To cover up her embarrassment, therefore, she took refuge, as before, in hospitality, and rushing over to the bar she called to Nick to come and serve Mr. Johnson with a drink, only to dismiss him the moment he put his head through the door with: “Never mind, I’ll help Mr. Johnson m’self.” Turning to her visitor again, she said: “Have your whisky with water, won’t you?”