Babe's lips fell apart. She sat down in the accordion-plaited chair and rocked. A squealing, shaking noise accompanied the motion. Her fingers sought and found against the chair-back a piece of chewing-gum which she had stuck there during her last visit to Sheila. Babe hid and resurrected chewing-gum as instinctively as a dog hides and resurrects his bones.
"I can see you likin' Dickie," she remarked ironically.
"But I do, I tell you! He was sweet. He didn't say a word or do a thing to frighten me—"
"But he was full, Shee, you know he was."
"Yes. He'd been drinking. I smelt it. And he didn't walk very straight, and he was a little mixed in his speech. But, all the same, he was as good as gold. And friendly and nice. I might have walked home quietly with him and sent him away at the door. And he wouldn't have been seen by his father." Sheila's eyes filled. "It was dreadful—to—to knock him down the steps!"
"Say, if you'd had as much to put up with from Dickie as Poppa's had—"
"Oh," said Sheila in a tone that welled up as from under a weight, "if I had always lived in Millings, I'd drink myself!"
Babe looked red and resentful, but Sheila's voice rushed on.
"That saloon is the only interesting and attractive place in town. The only thrilling people that ever come here go in through those doors. I've seen some wonderful-looking men. I'd like to paint them. I've made some drawings of them—men from over there back of the mountains."
"You mean the cowboys from over The Hill, I guess," drawled Babe contemptuously. "Those sagebrush fellows from Hidden Creek. I don't think a whole lot of them. Put one of them alongside of one of our town boys! Why, they don't speak good, Sheila, and they're rough as a hill trail. You'd be scared to death of them if you knew them better."