voices--a dissent, it may be remarked, generally withheld, however,
when the masculine spinster dwells on the perfection of woman. I dare
say Miss Porter was sincere, for a moment later she continued,
poutingly:
"And yet I used to go to fires in Sacramento when I was only ten years
old. I saw the theatre burnt down. Nobody found fault with me then."
Something made Cass ask if her father and mother objected to her boyish
tastes. The reply was characteristic if not satisfactory:
"Object? I'd like to see them do it!"
The direction of the road had changed. The fickle moon now abandoned
Miss Porter and sought out Cass on the front seat. It caressed the
young fellow's silky moustache and long eyelashes, and took some of the
sunburn from his cheek.
"What's the matter with your neck?" said the girl, suddenly.
Cass looked down, blushing to find that the collar of his smart "duck"
sailor shirt was torn open. But something more than his white, soft,
girlish skin was exposed; the shirt front was dyed quite red with blood
from a slight cut on the shoulder. He remembered to have felt a scratch
while struggling with Hornsby.
The girl's soft eyes sparkled. "Let _me_," she said, vivaciously. "Do!
I'm good at wounds. Come over here. No--stay there. I'll come over to
you."
She did, bestriding the back of the middle seat and dropping at his
side. The magnetic fingers again touched his; he felt her warm breath
on his neck as she bent toward him.
"It's nothing," he said, hastily, more agitated by the treatment than
the wound.
"Give me your flask," she responded, without heeding. A stinging
sensation as she bathed the edges of the cut with the spirit brought
him back to common sense again. "There," she said, skillfully
extemporizing a bandage from her handkerchief and a compress from his
cravat. "Now, button your coat over your chest, so, and don't take
cold." She insisted upon buttoning it for him; greater even than the
feminine delight in a man's strength is the ministration to his
weakness. Yet, when this was finished, she drew a little away from him
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