“Well—he's from Virginia, and he ain't allowin' he's black.”
“He's a tenderfoot, I suppose?”
“Ha, ha, ha! That's rich, too!” and so the simple partner explained a great deal about the Virginian to Molly Wood. At the end of the set she saw the man by the door take a step in her direction.
“Oh,” said she, quickly, to the partner, “how warm it is! I must see how those babies are doing.” And she passed the Virginian in a breeze of unconcern.
His eyes gravely lingered where she had gone. “She knowed me right away,” said he. He looked for a moment, then leaned against the door. “'How warm it is!' said she. Well, it ain't so screechin' hot hyeh; and as for rushin' after Alfred and Christopher, when their natural motheh is bumpin' around handy—she cert'nly can't be offended?” he broke off, and looked again where she had gone. And then Miss Wood passed him brightly again, and was dancing the schottische almost immediately. “Oh, yes, she knows me,” the swarthy cow-puncher mused. “She has to take trouble not to see me. And what she's a-fussin' at is mighty interestin'. Hello!”
“Hello!” returned Lin McLean, sourly. He had just looked into the kitchen.
“Not dancin'?” the Southerner inquired.
“Don't know how.”
“Had scyarlet fever and forgot your past life?”
Lin grinned.