"Nonsense! You can't help being one or the other. And that reminds me: you haven't accounted for yourself yet. Can you do it in the hollow of a minute?"
"Just about. Garvin picked me out of the gutter and took me with him on this prospecting trip. That's all."
"But you ought to have left word with somebody. It was rough on your friends to drop out as if you'd dodged the undertaker."
"Who was there to care?"
"Well, I cared, for one; and then there is Lansdale, and—and"—
"I know," said Jeffard humbly. He was hungry for news, but he went fasting on the thinnest paring of inquiry. "Does she remember me yet?"
Bartrow nodded. "She's not of the forgetting kind. I never go to Denver that she doesn't ask me if I've heard of you. But that's Connie Elliott, every day in the week. She's got a heartful of her own just now, too, I take it, but that doesn't make any difference. She's everybody's sister, just the same."
"A—a heartful of her own, you say? I don't quite understand." Jeffard was staring intently down the empty railway yard, and the glistening lines of steel were blurred for him.
It was a situation for a bit of merciful diplomacy, but Bartrow the tactless blundered on remorselessly.
"Why, yes,—with Lansdale, you know. I don't know just how far it has gone, but if I were going to put money on it, I'd say she would let her life be shortened year for year if his could be spun out in proportion."