"Neither," he said promptly. "I was merely saying to myself that my
wretched awkwardness didn't give me an excuse for boring you."

"It was an accident--nothing more or less," she rejoined, with an air of
dismissing finally the purse-snatching episode. Then she added: "I am
the one who ought to be embarrassed."

"But you are not," he returned quickly. "You are quite the mistress of
yourself--which is more than most women would be, under the
circumstances."

"Is that a compliment?" she asked, with latent mockery in the violet
eyes. "Because if it is, I think you must be out of the West; the--the
unfettered West: isn't that what it is called?"

"I am," Ford acknowledged. "But why do you say that? Was I rude? I beg
you to believe that I didn't mean to be."

"Oh, no; not rude--merely sincere. We are not sincere any more, I think;
except on the frontier edges of us. Are we?"

Ford took exceptions to the charge for the sheer pleasure of hearing her
talk.

"I'd be sorry to believe that," he protested. "The conventions account
for something, of course; and I suppose the polite lie which deceives no
one has to have standing-room. But every now and then one is surprised
into telling the truth, don't you think?"