Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/490

Rh "Blamed if I do!"

"The first time we met?"

"Yes; my mem'ry keeps that—like I keep this." And he brought from his pocket her own handkerchief, the token he had picked up at a river's brink when he had carried her from an overturned stage.

"We did not exactly meet, then," she said. "It was at that dance. I hadn't seen you yet; but Trampas was saying something horrid about me, and you said—you said, 'Rise on your legs, you pole cat, and tell them you're a liar.' When I heard that, I think—I think it finished me." And crimson suffused Molly's countenance.

"I'd forgot," the Virginian murmured. Then sharply, "How did you hear it?"

"Mrs. Taylor—"

"Oh! Well, a man would never have told a woman that."

Molly laughed triumphantly. "Then who told Mrs. Taylor?"

Being caught, he grinned at her. "I reckon husbands are a special kind of man," was all that he found to say. "Well, since you do know about that, it was the next move in the game. Trampas thought I had no call to stop him sayin' what he pleased about a woman who was nothin' to me—then. But all women ought to be somethin' to a man. So I had to give Trampas another explanation in the presence of folks lookin' on, and it was just like the cyards. No ideas occurred to him again. And down goes his opinion of me some more!

"Well, I have not been able to raise it. There