“Not cigarettes––where I ever see them,” she said.
“And cigars or pipes?” he queried.
“One has to concede something to masculine weakness,” she sighed.
“Unfortunately I have no cigars with me, not even at my camp, and a pipe is so slow,” he complained.
“Oh, pray, do not deprive yourself on my account,” she said. “You’ll find the cut between those two hills about as short a way to your camp as this one, if you prefer your cigarettes to my company.”
“Crool maid!” he reproached, not altogether jestingly. He even looked across at the gap through the hills to which she was pointing. Then he saw the disdain in her blue eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips, eyed it regretfully, and flung it away with a petulant fillip.
“There!” he said. Meeting her amused smile, he 36 added in the injured tone of a spoiled child. “You don’t realize what a compliment that is.”
“What?––abstaining for a half hour or so? If I asked you to break off entirely, and you did it, I would consider that a real compliment.”
“I should say so!”
“But I am by no means sure that I would care to ask you,” she bantered.