"Glad to hear it."
"I admire his pluck."
"It's a dangerous quality—admiration. Sure the old 'pash' hasn't looked up a bit?"
"Quite sure."
"Still it 'curred to me you were shaken some at the treatment we're serving out to him."
"That's not surprising. I merely wanted to get my own back, not—not——" She left the sentence unfinished.
Ezra P. Hipps took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and chewed it reflectively, his eyes never leaving the girl's face.
"Women are queer ships," he said, "and never too even on the keel. You've an important hand to play and kind of to keep your mind from revoking here's a proposition to think over."
"Revoking?"
"That's the word. You're in this deal on a jealousy outfit and we're not after any renunciation, splendid sacrifice and that gear. We want you dead hard and seemed to me to get that I might do well to tie you up a bit closer to the cause."