His nerves had been tense, and at best his temper was likely to flare out now and then. He wished for a second that she was a few years younger so that he could take her across his knee.
“Flirt?” she repeated after him, lifting her brows. She shook her head. “What must I say?”
The suspicion came upon him that she was secretly enjoying herself at his expense, and he said quickly:
“I should think you could find a number of things to say here where a stranger doesn’t come every day. You might even ask me inside and strain no sense of convention. You might offer me a cup of coffee and nobody would accuse you of being forward! You might tell me where I am and what town this is—or was. You might tell me something about the rest of your party, where they are, and when I can have a talk with some one who is willing to talk.”
For a moment she seemed to be pondering what he had said. Then, as bidden, she answered, speaking slowly, taking up point by point:
“You cannot come inside. I would lock the door. I would shoot you with a big gun I have in there. It is like yours, but bigger. Coffee?” She shook her head as she had before. “I don’t know what that is. This town is Johnny’s Luck. I have no one else for you to talk to. You must go away.”
Sheldon stared at her incredulously. The short laugh with which he meant to answer her was a bit forced, unconvincing in his own ears. The girl watched him with the same keen, speculative eyes.
“You don’t mean for me to believe that you are here all alone?” he demanded.
She hesitated. Then she answered in her own words of a moment ago:
“I have no one else for you to talk to.”