“Why not? Wasn’t I having a heap of fun? Where can I see any better time than I had here, or find better friends? Money’s no good by itself. I haven’t drawn a dollar from Arizona since I left. It was fun to make the mine go round at first; but when it got so it’d work I looked for something else more amusing.”
“I should think you’d want to travel, anyhow.”
“Travel?” echoed Jeff. “Travel? Why, you damn fool, I’m here now!”
“Will you stay here, if you marry her, Jeff?”
“So you’ve no objection to make, if I’ve got a few dollars? That squares everything all right, does it? Not a yeep of protest from you now? See here, you everlasting fool! I’m just the same man I was fifteen minutes ago when you thought I didn’t have any money. If I’m fit for her now, I was then. If I wasn’t good enough then, I’m not good enough now.”
“But I wasn’t thinking of her—I was thinking of—how it would look.”
“Look? Who cares how it looks? Just a silly prejudice! ‘They say—what say they—let them say!’ Johnny, maybe I was just stringin’ you. If I was lying about the money—how about it then? Changed your mind again?”
“You wasn’t lyin’, was you?”
“Shan’t tell you! It doesn’t really make any difference, anyhow.”