Blount turned and looked his companion coldly in the eyes.

"Not in the slightest degree, Dick. Will you take that for your answer
now, and remember it hereafter?"

"Sure," laughed the railroad man. And then, to round out the forbidden
topic by adding worse to bad: "I didn't know it was a sore spot with
you. How should I know? But, as I say, you'll have to reckon with her
sooner or later, and--"

"Let's talk of something else," snapped Blount.

Gantry found a match and relighted his cigar. When he began again he was
still thinking of the "apron-string" clause in the senator's telegram.

"I can't understand how any man with Western blood in his veins could
ever be content to marry and settle down in this over-civilized neck of
woods," he remarked, looking down upon the parked automobiles and around
at the country-club evidences of the civilization.

"Can't you?" smiled Blount, with large lenience. One of the things the
civilization had done for him was to make him good-naturedly tolerant of
the crudeness of the outlander.

"No, I can't," asserted the Westerner. Then he added: "Of course, I
don't know the Eastern young woman even by sight. She may be all that is
lovely, desirable, and enticing--if a man could hope to live long
enough to get really well acquainted with her."

"She is," declared Blount, with the air of one who had lived quite long