"Please, Skinny, don't say it!" she interrupted, her voice trembling. "I—I know what you mean! It hurts me. Listen, Skinny"—she hurried on, determined to end it quickly—"maybe you will despise me, but—I like you, truly I do—but not that way! I don't want to grieve you—I wish us to be just good friends—that's why I'm telling you! Let's be friends, Skinny—just friends—we can't be any more than that—"
Skinny understood. A dull, throbbing pain tightened about his throat. His fingers gripped Carolyn June's hand an instant and then relaxed. The whole world seemed suddenly blank.
"Can't you—won't you—ever—ca—care?" he asked in a voice filled with despair.
"I do care, boy," she replied softly, "I do care—but not that way! Oh, Skinny," she exclaimed, wishing to make it as easy as possible for the sentimental cowboy at her side, "maybe I have done wrong to let you go ahead, but, well, I found out—I guessed the 'arrangements'—how you had been chosen to make 'love' to me and how Parker and Uncle Josiah were to divide Ophelia between them. Perhaps that is why I have flirted so—just to punish you all! Truly, Skinny, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me like—like—the Ramblin' Kid does!" she finished with a shaky little laugh.
"He—don't hate you," Skinny answered dully, "at least I don't think th' Ramblin' Kid hates you—or anybody. And you knowed all the time that I was getting paid to make love to you? Well, I was," he added chokingly, "but I'd have done it for nothing if I'd had the chance!"
"Yes, Skinny," she replied, "I knew—I know—and I don't blame you!"
"I don't blame you, either," he said humbly, "it was a—a—excuse me, Carolyn June—a damned mean trick to frame up on you and Ophelia that way—but we didn't know what to do with you! I reckon," he continued in the same despairing tone, "I was a blamed fool!"
For a long moment they sat silent.
"Carolyn June," Skinny finally said, a sigh of resignation breaking from his lips, "I'll be what you said—just a good friend—I always will be that to you! But before we start in, do you mind if I—if I—go up to Eagle Butte and get—drunk!"
In spite of herself she laughed. But in it was a tenderness almost mother-like.