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All had gone well till about twelve o'clock: she had danced with this partner and that, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. Then came Purdy's turn. She was with Mrs. Long when he claimed her, and she at once suggested that they should sit out the dance on one of the settees placed round the hall, where they could amuse themselves by watching the dancers.
"Tell me your news, Dan," said Nance in desperation. "Where you living now?" "At Mrs. Purdy's. She's going to take care of Ted for me." "Ted? Oh! I forgot. How old is he now?" For the first time Dan's face lit up with his fine, rare smile. "He's four, Nance, and the smartest kid that ever lived! You'd be crazy about him, I know. I wonder if you couldn't go out there some day and see him?"
Tilly, sobbing noisily, wept on Polly's neck that she wished she was dead or at the bottom of the sea; and Polly, torn between pride and pain at Purdy's delinquency, could only kiss her several times without speaking. The farewells buzzed and flew. "Good-bye to you, little lass ... beg pardon, Mrs. Dr. Mahony!" "Mind you write, Poll! I shall die to 'ear."
Mahony made a quick, repellent movement of the shoulder. But Purdy, some vagrom fancy quickened in him, either by the voice, which was not unrefined, or by the stealthiness of the approach, Purdy turned to look. "Come, come, my boy. We've no time to lose." Without raising her pleasant voice, the woman levelled a volley of abuse at Mahony, then muttered a word in Purdy's ear.
Under its influence he wrote an outspoken letter to Purdy but with no very satisfactory result. It was like projecting a feeler for sympathy into the void, so long was it since they had met, and so widely had his friend's life branched from his. Purdy's answer it was headed "The Ovens" did not arrive till several weeks later, and was mainly about himself.
It was strangely hot and still, and somewhere out on the horizon was a grumbling discontent. It was raining hard at eleven o'clock when he boarded a car for Butternut Lane, and by the time he reached the Purdy's corner, the lightning was playing sharply in the northwest. He let himself in the empty house and felt his way up to his room, but he did not go to bed.
The cowboy who had the broncho in tow headed out on the flat prepared to throw off his dallies and two others, including Purdy, rode forward quirt in hand, to haze the hate-blinded outlaw from crashing into the wagons. With his hand gripping the cheek-strap, Tex turned and looked straight into Purdy's eyes.
At best he was but a poor hand at the kind of repartee demanded of their swains by these young women; and to-day his slender talent failed him altogether, crushed by the general tone of vulgar levity. Looking over at the horizon, which swam in a kind of gold-dust haze below the sinking sun, he smiled thinly to himself at Purdy's ideas of wiving.
I'll be wantin' most likely to see you in a while " "We'll both be here," interrupted Jennie. "Both of us. We'll be in Number 11." Outside the hotel the Texan paused to roll and light a cigarette, and as he blew the smoke from his lungs, he smiled cynically. "Purdy's work was so damn coarse he got just what was comin' to him. There's only me an' the pilgrim, now an' it's me an' him for it.
The Texan saw Endicott enter the room, watched as the man's eyes swept the faces of dancers and spectators, and smiled as he turned toward the door. "Three of us," mused the cowboy, with the peculiar smile still twisting the corners of his lips, "Purdy, an' me, an' the pilgrim. Purdy's work's so coarse he'll gum his own game, an' that's where I come in.
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