"I can," retorted Miss Edith, "every bit as easily as I can imagine you!
And, if you'll pardon me, I don't believe a word of it, either."

On the whole, I could hardly blame her. As she had always known me, I must
have appeared to her somewhat like Solomon's lilies. But I did not try to
convince her; there were other things more important.

I went and made my bow to Mrs. Loroman, and answered sundry
questions--more conventional, I may say, than were those of her daughter.
Mrs. Loroman was one of the best type of society dames, and I will own
that I was a bit surprised to find that she was Beryl King's aunt. In
spite of that indefinable little air of breeding that I had felt in my two
meetings with Miss King, I had thought of her as distinctly a daughter of
the range-land.

"I'll introduce you to my cousin and aunt now, if you like," Edith offered
generously, in an undertone--for the two were not ten feet from us,
although Miss King had not yet seen fit to know that I was in the room.
How a woman can act so deuced innocent, beats me.

Miss King lowered her chin as much as half an inch, and looked at me as if
I were an exceeding commonplace, inanimate object that could not possibly
interest her. Her aunt, Lodema King, was almost as bad, I think; I didn't
notice particularly. But Miss King's I-do-not-know-you-sir air could not
save her; I hadn't schemed like a villain for a week, and ridden
twenty-five miles at a good fast clip after a stiff day's work, just to be
presented and walk away. I asked her for the next waltz.

"The next waltz is promised to Mr. Weaver," she told me freezingly.