Hough laughed. “You’re young in Benton. Neale, let me introduce to you the lady who saved you from some inconvenience.... Miss Stanton—Mr. Neale.”
And that was how Neale met Beauty Stanton. It seemed she had done him a service. He thanked her. Neale’s manner with women was courteous and deferential. It showed strangely here by contrast. The Stanton woman was superb, not more than thirty years old, with a face that must have been lovely once and held the haunting ghost of beauty still. Her hair was dead gold; her eyes were large and blue, with dark circles under them; and her features had a clear-cut classic regularity.
“Where’s Ancliffe?” asked Hough, addressing Stanton. She pointed, and Hough left them.
“Neale, you’re new here,” affirmed the woman, rather curiously.
“Didn’t I look like it? I can’t forget what that girl said,” replied Neale.
“Tell me.”
“She asked me what in the hell I came here for. And she called me—”
“Oh, I heard what Ruby called you. It’s a wonder it wasn’t worse. She can swear like a trooper. The men are mad over Ruby. It’d be just like her to fall in love with you for snubbing her.”
“I hope she doesn’t,” replied Neale, constrainedly.
“May I ask—what did you come here for?”