“You mean that she’d lead a chap on and then drop him?” David’s brows tightened to a frown.
“I don’t know,” replied Bascomb listlessly. “Perhaps I took too much for granted. She’s not like other girls.”
“Well, Walt, I think I understand. It’s one of the men that went under in the rapids that time. Swickey hasn’t been the same since. She will hardly speak to me now. I don’t know why. She used to be the greatest youngster for fun—”
“Well,” interrupted Bascomb, “she isn’t a youngster any more, Davy. I can tell you that much. I’m the kid—or goat—it’s all the same.”
“When you get back home you’ll feel differently about it,” said David. “When you get among your own kind again.”
“Oh, damn that song about ‘my own kind.’” His face flamed and paled again. “This caste business makes me sick. Why, Swickey’s worth any six Back Bay dollies in Boston. There’s more real woman about her than a whole paddock of them.”
“Well, that’s going some for you, Walt, but you’re pretty nearly right.”
“You, too?” said Bascomb, with a quick smile.
David bit his lip and a slow tide of color crept under his tan, but Bascomb, bending again over his packing, did not see. Finally he arose, and, swinging the pack to his shoulders, stepped out and across to Avery’s camp.
Swickey saw him coming, and, shaking the dish-water from her fingers, she wiped her hands on her apron and came to the door.