“I presume she owns it, very largely.”
The girl nodded. “You talk like a book. You must of studied a terrible pile.”
“Not so much, really.”
“H'm,” said the girl, and seemed to reserve judgment.
Then she asked with a return of her former sharpness: “How come you gambled today at Pedro's?”
“I don't know. It seemed the thing to do—to kill time, you know.”
“Kill time! At Pedro's? Well—you
“I suppose I am, Kate.”
He made a little pause before her name, and when he spoke it, in spite of himself, his voice changed, became softer. The girl straightened somewhat, and the light was now increased to such a point that he could make out that she was frowning at him through the dimness.
“First, you been adopted, then you been raised on a great big place with everything you want, mostly, and now you're out—playing at Pedro's. How come, Terry?”
“I was sent away,” said Terry faintly, as all the pain of that farewell came flooding back over him.
“Why?”
“I shot a man.”
“Ah!” said Kate. “You shot a man?” It seemed to silence her. “Why, Terry?”
“He had killed my father,” he explained, more softly than ever.
“I know. It was Minter. And they turned you out for that?”
There was a trembling intake of her breath. He could catch the sparkle of her eyes, and knew that she had flown into one of her sudden, fiery passions. And it warmed his heart to hear her.
“I'd like to know what kind of people they are, anyway! I'd like to meet up with that Elizabeth Cornish, the —”
“She's the finest woman that ever breathed,” said Terry simply.
“You say that,” she pondered slowly, “after she sent you away?”
“She did only what she thought was right. She's a little hard, but very just, Kate.”
She was shaking her head; the hair had become a dull and wonderful gold in the faint moonshine.
“I dunno what kind of a man you are, Terry. I didn't ever know a man could stick by—folks—after they'd been hurt by 'em. I couldn't do it. I ain't got much Bible stuff in me, Terry. Why, when somebody does me a wrong, I hate 'em—I hate 'em! And I never forgive 'em till I get back at 'em.” She sighed. “But you're different, I guess. I begin to figure that you're pretty white, Terry Hollis.”
There was something so direct about her talk that he could not answer. It seemed to him that there was in her a cross between a boy and a man—the simplicity of a child and the straightforward strength of a grown man, and all this tempered and made strangely delightful by her own unique personality.
“But I guessed it the first time I looked at you,” she was murmuring. “I guessed that you was different from the rest.”
She had her elbow on her knee now, and, with her chin cupped in the graceful hand, she leaned toward him and studied him.
“When they're clean-cut on the outside, they're spoiled on the inside. They're crooks, hard ones, out for themselves, never giving a rap about the next gent in line. But mostly they ain't even clean on the outside, and you can see what they are the first time you look at 'em.
“Oh, I've liked some of the boys now and then; but I had to make myself like 'em. But you're different. I seen that when you started talking. You didn't sulk; and you didn't look proud like you wanted to show us what you could do; and you didn't boast none. I kept wondering at you while I was at the piano. And—you made an awful hit with me, Terry.”
Again he was too staggered to reply. And before he could gather his wits, the girl went on:
“Now, is they any real reason why you shouldn't get out of here tomorrow morning?”
It was a blow of quite another sort.
“But why should I go?”
She grew very solemn, with a trace of sadness in her voice.
“I'll tell you why, Terry. Because if you stay around here too long, they'll make you what you don't want to be—another Black Jack. Don't you see that that's why they like you? Because you're his son, and because they want you to be another like him. Not that I have anything against him. I guess he was a fine fellow in his way.” She paused and stared directly at him in a way he found hard to bear. “He must of been! But that isn't the sort of a man you want to make out of yourself. I know. You're trying to go straight. Well, Terry, nobody that ever stepped could stay straight long when they had around 'em Denver Pete and—my father.” She said the last with a sob of grief. He tried to protest, but she waved him away.
“I know. And it's true. He'd do anything for me, except change himself. Believe me, Terry, you got to get out of here—pronto. Is they anything to hold you here?”
“A great deal. Three hundred dollars I owe your father.”
She considered him again with that mute shake of the head. Then: “Do you mean it? I see you do. I don't suppose it does any good for me to tell you that he cheated you out of that money?”
