In spite of his matter-of-fact tone, she knew he was offering a true explanation for his pallor—only she substituted his name for Hank's, and felt she was nearer the truth.
"You're a strange man"—her pretty forehead was wrinkled with perplexity—"suppose all this that happened here yesterday had occurred in—Texas."
"It could not have occurred in Texas," he said instantly. "You would have missed the light flow of talk and the interplay of pleasant compliments. There would be only one thing to do. Down in Texas they recognize that fact. Don't you know the story of the sheriff who tried to arrest Black Ike of Montana? The sheriff pulled a gun on Ike, but Ike got first shot. The sheriff was mightily popular, and the folks were grieved but philosophical. They lynched Black Ike and put a splendid monument over the sheriff. In one line they apostrophized his life, ambition and splendid failure—and the inevitability of it all. It ran—
"He did his damndest, angels could do no more."
She was shocked but she laughed—
"So in Texas——"
"I should have killed him," he said with confidence.
"Or else——?" she shivered.
"Or else—exactly," he said cheerfully.
"It's very dreadful," she said with a troubled face. "Thank goodness, that that sort of thing cannot happen here."