Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/185

Rh "Lola," for he felt he would always think of her by that name, could have achieved such an unselfish fondness for Peggy Furniss. There was nothing especially refined about the girl, as the world views refinement, but she was not merely pretty, she was frank and both quick and courageous, as she had shown by her expedition with Harvey to the rescue. A Western product, he decided, who had had to earn her own living and had managed it very well until the White Plague threatened her. There was something boyish about her yet she was entirely feminine, despite her riding and her stunts, and her slang.

But, if Peggy ranked well in his estimation, "Lola" had risen far higher. The sight of the picture in her Carmen costume, worn for so high a purpose in so low a place, had given him a thrill he had not believed himself capable of. To imagine that he could have held such a feeling for a girl in a dance hall would have caused him self-ridicule once. It did not now. He wanted to see her again, to tell her what he thought of her devotion to her sick chum, and through it all ran a supreme satisfaction that he had beaten Padilla and in front of her. He had been her champion and she, fighting her own battles, had cast off her reserves and kissed him. She would not sell her kisses, she had told him, but she might give them—if? In her loneliness and constant fight against her sordid surroundings he had taken up her battle and she had been grateful. She had asked him to write, if he wanted to, and he had carelessly, condescendingly, sent her a postal card.