“And cyards! Suffering Moses! I seen a guy deal a straight flush to himself and no one savvied he’d got the pack sandpapered. Out in Medicine Bow he’d hev’ bin filled up with lead to his shoulder-blades. I guess this is a darn bad place.”
“You’re lovely!” she said merrily. “But when in Rome, do as Rome does. Do you go to dinner in that rig-out?”
Jim felt nervously at his throat.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It suits you admirably. But the hotel won’t like it.” 20
“See here,” he retorted, “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what the hotel likes. Anyway, it’s decent, which is considerably more’n some of the dresses I’ve seen. There’s a gal with nothin’ more’n a bit of muslin she could fold up and put in her mouth. She’s got Mother Eve beaten to a frazzle.”
They gossiped for half an hour, and then Edith (he heard a friend call her by that name) left him and went to dinner. The next meeting happened on the following day. Edith’s company appealed to him. She certainly used a lot of “make-up,” and creams that smelt like a chemist’s shop; but all New York smelt vile to Jim, so he didn’t complain.
Taking his courage in both hands, he invited her to dine with him. She accepted with as much eagerness as maidenly modesty would permit, and Jim went off to lunch in the best hotel in town, to take careful note of the proper procedure of a gentleman “standing treat” to a lady. He got it off fairly well, making notes on a sheet of paper. Then he went to his room and rehearsed it all. He started dressing himself about five o’clock, and had nearly got his clothes 21 to his satisfaction by the appointed time—seven-thirty.
The dinner was a roaring success. Conversation was feeble because all his time was taken up in observing correct decorum. Edith sat and regarded him with curious eyes. She wondered, for good reasons, what the emotions of such a man might be. Behind those quiet, simple eyes of his there occasionally flashed something that made her afraid—dreadfully afraid. She had not wasted time that day. She knew this big, uncultured fellow was James Conlan, late of Topeka Mine—a millionaire.
Jim breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left the dining-hall and walked through the lounge into the wide balcony. He was standing looking out over the street when he noticed her totter and clutch a chair.