“Are you lame?” she repeated severely, ignoring his truthful saying.
“‘Not—very.’” The quotation marks were clearly audible.
“Are you lame at all?”
“No, ma’am—not what you might call really lame. Uh—no, ma’am.”
“And you deceived me like that!” Indignation checked her. “Oh, I am so disappointed in you! That was a fine, manly thing for you to do!”
“It was such a lovely time,” observed the culprit doggedly. “And such a chance might never happen again. And it isn’t my fault I wasn’t hurt, you know. I’m sure I wish I was.”
She gave him an icy glare.
“Now see what you’ve done! Your men haven’t come and you won’t stay with Mr. Lake. How are you going to get home? Oh, I forgot—you can walk, as you should have done at first.”
The guilty wretch wilted yet further. He shuffled his feet; he writhed; he positively squirmed. He ventured a timid upward glance. It seemed to give him courage. Prompted, doubtless, by the same feeling which drives one to dive headlong into dreaded cold water, he said, in a burst of candor:
“Well, you see, ma’am, that little horse now—he really ain’t got far. He got tangled up over there a ways——”