“Did you ever run up against him?”
“No, I never got that far. He’s hail-fellow-well-met with every youngster in town. He will laugh and joke about his daughter until he thinks she is in earnest about a fellow, and then he swoops down on him like a hawk. I ’ll bet a hundred dollars he’s playing you now for all you’re worth against the latest favourite. But Miss Sallie—she’s an angel!”
“Look here, Bob, you’re not in love with her?”
“Well, I’m convalescing at present my boy. Every boy in the town has been there, but I don’t believe she cares a snap for a man of us unless it’s that big redheaded McLeod. I can’t make his position out exactly.”
“Did she jolt you hard when you hit the ground?”
“Easiest thing you ever saw. She has a supreme genius for painless cruelty. When the time comes she can pull your eye-tooth out in such a delicate friendly way you will have to swear she hasn’t hurt you.”
“You still go?”
“Lord yes, we all do,—sort of a congress of the lost meet down there. They all hang on. She keeps the friendship of every poor devil she kills.”
“You know you make the cold chills run down my back when you talk like that.”
“Are you in love with her, Gaston?”