Mr. Hennage turned from his survey of the patio.
“Doc,” he complained, “it's time for you to move out o' San Pasqual. You've stayed too long already. You're gettin' the San Pasqual sperrit, Doc. You ain't got no sympathy for a stranger.”
“Well, you don't expect me to put up twenty-five a week and railroad fare—”
“Never mind worryin' about what you've got to put up with, Doc. If you know all the things I put up with—thanks, Doc. Hurry back, and don't forget to 'phone for that nurse.”
“Ain't it marvelous how a small camp always narrers the point o' view?” the gambler observed when the doctor had gone. “Always thinkin' o' themselves an' money, A man in my business, Miss Donna, soon learns that mighty few men—an' women, too—will stand the acid. That young feller inside (he jerked a fat thumb over his shoulder) will stand it. I know. I've applied the acid. An' you'll stand the acid, too,” he added—“when Mrs. Pennycook hears you kissed Bob McGraw. Ouch! That woman's tongue drips corrosive sublimate.”
Donna blushed furiously.
“You—you—won't tell, will you, Mr. Hennage?”
“Of course not. But that chuckleheaded roughneck O'Rourke will. Why did you kiss him? I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but I'd like to know, Miss Donna.”
“I kissed him”—Donna commenced to cry and hid her burning face in her hands. “I kissed him because—because—I thought he was dying—and he was the first man—that looked at—me so different. And he was so brave, Mr. Hennage—”
“That you thought he was a man an' worth the kiss, eh, Miss Donna?”