“And when you did grow up you both revolted?”
“No; only one of us—more’s the pity. I’m a worse rotter than your man Middleton. Of course I like Eugie—like her immensely; we grew up together. The trouble is she likes me; not wisely, but a lot too well. She has always taken the pinafore arrangement as a settled thing. I am afraid she still takes it that way.”
“Well, there isn’t any other ‘one and only’ in the case, is there?”
“Not so you could observe it. But that isn’t the question. I haven’t any conscience—not in your meaning of the word—but I have something that partly answers the same purpose. I don’t want to be cajoled into marrying a woman that I don’t love in a marrying way. It would be a sorry bargain for the woman.”
“I see. But this is all back-number stuff. Where does your jolt come in?”
“At the front door, and as large as life. The younger sister’s health isn’t good; weak lungs. Thurlow—he’s the chap I met at Mrs. Demming’s—tells me that the whole Follansbee clan is about to come to Colorado to try the effect of the altitudes on Lucy Ann. Philip, old boy, I’m a ruined community!”
Philip smiled again, less grimly, this time. The play-boy was presenting another facet of his many-sided character, an entirely new and different one.
“Afraid the charming Eugenia will marry you out of hand?” he jested.
“You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head! If she could find me as you found me last spring—a shameless down-and-out—there might be some hope for me. But now ... it’s a fearful price to have to pay for bracing up, Philip!”
“What are you going to do about it—dodge?”