The girl’s face turned a dark and painful red. She glanced helplessly at the man whose manner toward her was marked by a difference.
Kirwin smiled kindly in response to this glance.
“That’s enough, Angier,” he said with some sternness in his voice. “Miss Casey, my friend is distinctly young and rather flippant; take him with a grain of salt.”
“Sure!” responded Miss Casey. “I’ve often met ’em like that. They’re harmless.”
Angier lifted his glass to his merry young mouth. From the glass issued a gurgle or two. Miss Casey eyed him for a moment; then turned to Kirwin with a degree of confidence.
“Say—what did you two fellows call me over here for? I know it wasn’t just to have a good time. You can’t fool Mary. I know the difference in men. He’s guying me, but he isn’t tough.”
Kirwin bowed, growing respect in his deep-set eyes.
“Miss Casey, we owe you an apology. We did an unpardonable thing; we made a bet on you. It isn’t what men should do about a woman——”
“ ...But you did it about me, because I’m not a woman—I’m just a dance-hall girl in the Orient? Oh, don’t apologize; I understand. I’m used to it.”
There was no longer a trace of the ironic in Kirwin’s deference. Something of old-fashioned ceremony crept into his manner and softened the girl. She smiled at him without rancour.