"If you think I'm ungrateful for what you've done—sobered me up, I mean—just say so and I'll get out. That was all right. But what was your object?"
"I thought by bringing you out here you might get straightened up. I did it for your own good. You don't understand right now, but you may ... sometime."
"My own good! Well, I've had enough for my own good, now, so I guess I won't wait any longer to understand!"
He kicked off the covers and stood erect, swaying dizzily. Bayard stepped across to him.
"Get back into bed," he said, evenly, with no display of temper. "You couldn't walk to water an' you couldn't set on a horse five minutes. You're here an' you're goin' to stay a while whether you like it or not."
The cords of his neck stood out, giving the only evidence of the anger he felt. He gently forced the other man back into bed and covered him, breathing a trifle swiftly but offering no further protest for explanation.
"You keep me here by force, and then you prate about doing it for my own good!" Lytton panted. "You damned hypocrite; you.... It's on account of a woman, I know! She tried to get coy with me; she tried to make me think she was all yours when I followed her up. She told you about it and ... damn you, you're afraid to let me go back to town!"—lifting himself on an elbow. "Come, Bayard, be frank with me: the thing between us is a woman, isn't it?"
The rancher eyed him a long time, almost absently. Then he walked slowly to the far corner of the room and moved a chair back against the wall with great pains; it was as though he were deciding something, something of great importance, something on which an immediate decision was gravely necessary. He faced about and walked slowly back to the bedside without speaking. His lips were shut and the one hand held behind him was clenched into a knot.
"Not now ... a woman," he said, as though he were uncertain himself. "Not now ... but it may be, sometime...."
The other laughed and fell back into his pillows. Bayard looked down at him, eyes speculative beneath slightly drawn brows.