“Botanists don’t usually select November as a time for their work,” observed Campe. “That was a subterfuge, and that he thought it necessary to use one shows his intentions to be at least open to question.”
Bat acknowledged this with a nod.
“Only a few of us ever lie without a reason,” said he.
Miss Hohenlo, who had turned to listen, gesticulated admiringly and in such a way that her small white hands were well displayed.
“You have such a delightfully straightforward way with you, Mr. Scanlon,” she said. “I think it’s so refreshing. I suppose it comes of living so long in the West among people who have none of the subtleties of over-civilization, and among the grand wild scenery.”
“Maybe,” said Bat, “or it might be something else. You can’t always put the brand on a straightforward talker, and his reasons for being such, any more than you can on a botanist who picks the wrong time of the year to carry on his researches. I knew a fellow named Cameron once who kept the ‘Deuce High’ at Cripple Creek, and was the most civil fellow I ever met. His next best thing was straightforward talk, and he used to reel it off by the mile. Everybody took it in until one night, in the middle of a speech, somebody caught him slipping cards from the bottom of the pack. After that they sort of lost confidence.”
“Such a wild, reckless life,” sighed Miss Hohenlo, her pretty hands before her face, as though to shut it out. “And yet,” with an air, “I could almost wish I were a man so that I might take part in it.”
“You don’t have to be a man to do a little thing like that,” said Scanlon. He addressed Miss Hohenlo, but as he spoke his eyes were upon Miss Knowles. “Some women run a dead heat with the speediest of men.”
“Oh, not really!” exclaimed the spinster. “You can’t mean it.”
“It’s been my experience,” said Bat, “that the ladies are not a bit different from men in their undertakings. They just go about it differently.”