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Page 60
"Oh, my dear!" Florrie burst into Virginia's room, flushed and
palpitant with her latest emotion. "He has told me all about it, and
do you know, I don't believe that we have the right to blame him?
Doesn't it say in the Bible or . . . or somewhere, that greater praise
or something shall no man have than he who gives his life for a friend?
It's something like that, anyway. Aren't people just horrid, always
blaming other people, never stopping to consider their reasons and
impulses and looking at it from their side? Vidal Nu�ez was a friend
of Mr. Galloway's; he was in Mr. Galloway's house. Of course . . ."
"I thought that you didn't speak to him any more."
"I didn't for a long time. But if you could have only seen the way he
always looks at me when I bump into him. Virgie, I believe he is sad
and lonely and that he would like to be good if people would only give
him the chance. Why, he is human, after all, you know."
Virginia began to ask herself if Galloway were merely amusing himself
with Florrie or if the man were really interested in her. It did not
seem likely that a girl like Florrie would appeal to a man like him;
and yet, why not? There is at least a grain of truth, if no more, in
the old saw of the attraction of opposites. And it was scarcely more
improbable that he should be interested in her than that she should
allow herself to be ever so slightly moved by him. Furthermore, in its
final analysis, emotion is not always to be explained.
Virginia set herself the task of watching for any slightest development
of the man's influence over the girl. She saw Florrie almost daily,
either at the hotel to which Florrie had acquired the habit of coming
in the cool of the afternoons or at the Engle home. And for the sake
of her little friend, and at the same time for Elmer's sake, she threw
the two youngsters together as much as possible. They quarrelled
rather a good deal, criticised each other with startling frankness, and
grew to be better friends than either realized. Elmer was a vaquero
now, as he explained whenever need be or opportunity arose, wore chaps,
a knotted handkerchief about a throat which daily grew more brown,
spurs as large and noisy as were to be encountered on San Juan's
street, and his right hip pocket bulged. None of the details escaped
Florrie's eyes . . . he called her "Fluff" now and she nicknamed him
"Black Bill" . . . and she never failed to refer to them mockingly.
"They tell me, Black Bill," she said innocently, "that you fell off
your horse yesterday. I was so _sorry_."
She had offered her sympathy during a lull in the conversation, drawing
the attention of her father, mother, and Virginia to Elmer, whose face
reddened promptly.
"Florrie!" chided Mrs. Engle, hiding the twinkle in her own eyes.
"Oh, her," said Elmer with a wave of the hand. "I don't mind what
Fluff says. She's just trying to kid me."
Toward the end of the evening, having been thoughtful for ten minutes,
Elmer adopted Florrie's tactics and remarked suddenly and in a voice to
be heard much farther than his needed to carry:
"Say, Fluff. Saw an old friend of yours the other day." And when
Florrie, "gun-shy" as Elmer called her, was too wise to ask any
questions, he hastened on: "Juanito Miranda it was. Sent his best. So
did Mrs. Juanito."
Whereupon it was Florrie's turn to turn a scarlet of mortification and
anger. For Juanito had soft black eyes and almost equally soft black
mustaches, with probably a heart to match, and only a year ago Florrie
had been busied making a hero of him when he, the blind one, took unto
himself an Indian bride and in all innocence heaped shame high upon the
blonde head. How Elmer unearthed such ancient history was a mystery to
Florrie; but none the less she "hated" him for it. They saw a very
great deal of each other, each serving as a sort of balance-wheel to
the other's self-centred complacency. Perhaps the one subject upon
which they could agree was Jim Galloway; Elmer still liked to look upon
the gambler as a colossal figure standing serene among wolves, while
Florrie could admit to him, with no fear of a chiding, that she thought
Mr. Galloway "simply splendid!"
When one evening, after having failed to show himself for a full month,
Rod Norton came to the Engles', found Elmer and Virginia there, and
suggested the ride to the King's Palace, he awakened no end of
enthusiasm. Elmer had a day off, thanks to the generosity of his
employer, Mr. Engle, and had just secretly purchased a fresh outfit
consisting of a silver-mounted Spanish bit, a new pair of white and
unspeakably shaggy, draggy chaps, a wide hat with a band of snake hide,
and boots that were the final whisper in high-heeled discomfort.
Florrie disappeared into her room to make her own little riding-costume
as irresistible as possible. They were to start with the first streaks
of dawn to-morrow, just the four of them, since the banker and his
wife, lukewarmly invited, had no desire for a forty-mile ride between
morning and night.
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