Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder.
"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't want you to go."
Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove! I am."
They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in and hung up the saddle, each stirrup upon a nail. Relieved of his load he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets.
"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?"
The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets.
"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with Florence. She'd laugh at you!"
Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly.
Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and you—" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep water.
"And I am—an unknown," Ben finished for him.