“That so?” replied Neale, thoughtfully. “Let me talk to her.”
At a slight sign from Stanton, Ruby joined the group.
“Ruby, you’ve already introduced yourself to this gentleman, but not so nicely as you might have done,” said Beauty.
“I’m sorry,” replied Ruby. A certain wistfulness showed in her low tones.
“Maybe I was rude,” said Neale. “I didn’t intend to be. I couldn’t dance with any one here—or anywhere....” Then he spoke to her in a lower tone. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I won a thousand dollars to-night. I’ll give you half of it if you’ll go home.”
The girl shrank as if she had received a stab. Then she stiffened.
“Why don’t you go home?” she retorted. “We’re all going to hell out here, and the gamest will get there soonest.”
She glared at Neale an instant, white-faced and hard, and then, rejoining her companions, she led them away.
Beauty Stanton seemed to have received something of the check that had changed the girl Ruby.
“Gentlemen, you are my only friends in Benton. But these are business hours.”