Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/269

 Sinclair, however, had spirit enough to smooth quite away every embarrassment. “Bachelor’s quarters,” he explained roughly and pleasantly, as he led the two women toward the house. “Cowmen make poor housekeepers, but you must feel at home.” And when Dicksie, looking at his Indian rugs on the floors, the walls, and the couches, said she thought he had little to apologize for, Sinclair looked gratified and took off his hat again. “Just a moment,” he said, standing at the side of the door. “I’ve never been able to get Marion over here before, so it happens that a woman’s foot has never entered the new house. I want to watch one of you cross the threshold for the first time.”

Dicksie, moving ahead, retreated with a laugh. “You first, then, Marion.”

“No, Dicksie, you.”

“Never! you first.” So Marion, quite red and wretchedly ill at ease, walked into the ranch-house first.

Sinclair shone nowhere better than as a host. When he had placed his guests comfortably in the living-room he told them the story of the building of the house. Then he made a cicerone of himself, and explained, with running comments, each feature of his plan as he showed how it had been carried out through the various rooms. Surprised at the attractiveness of things, Dicksie found 245