appeared out of the mist of the marnin', there bein' a divil's lot of
excursions and conferences and holy gatherin's in Askatoon that time
back, ostensible for the business which their names denote, like the
Dioceesan Conference and the Pure White Water Society. That was their
bluff; but they'd come herealong for one good pure white dioceesan thing
before all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing which ever
infested the West. Come--he come like that!"--Deely made a motion like a
swoop of an aeroplane to earth--"and here he is buckin' about like a
rough-neck same as you and me; but yet a gent, a swell, a cream della
cream, that's turned his back on a lady--a lady not his own wife,
that's my sure and sacred belief."

"You certainly have got women on the brain," retorted Sibley. "I ain't
ever seen such a man as you. There never was a woman crossing the street
on a muddy day that you didn't sprint to get a look at her ankles.
Behind everything you see a woman. Horses is your profession, but woman
is your practice."

"There ain't but one thing worth livin' for, and that's a woman,"
remarked Deely.

"Do you tell Mrs. Deely that?" asked Sibley.

"Watch me now, she knows. What woman is there don't know when her
husband is what he is! And it's how I know that the trouble with James
Gathorne Kerry is a woman. I know the signs. Divils me own, he's got
'em in his face."

"He's got in his face what don't belong here and what you don't know much
about--never having kept company with that sort," rejoined Sibley.