“My friends?”
Her untender eyes mocked his astonishment. “Do I choose the wrong word?” she asked, with an audacity of a courage that delighted him. “Perhaps they are not your friends—these train robbers? Perhaps they are mere casual acquaintances?”
His bold eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident youth—the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely, subtle eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the alluring lines of long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was no sweet, ingenuous youth all prone to blushes, but the complex heir of that world-old wisdom the weaker sex has shaped to serve as a weapon against the strength that must be met with the wit of Mother Eve.
“You ce’tainly have a right vivid imagination, ma’am,” he said dryly.
“You are quite sure you have never seen them before?” her velvet voice asked.
He laughed. “Well, no—I can’t say I am.”
“Aren’t you quite sure you have seen them?”
Her eyes rested on him very steadily.
“You’re smart as a whip, Miss Wainwright. I take off my hat to a young lady so clever. I guess you’re right. About the identity of one of those masked gentlemen I’m pretty well satisfied.”
She drew a long breath. “I thought so.”