That what you count me, isn't it--an
enemy?"
"I don't know. I can't quite think of you as friend, can I?"
"And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost."
"Except the danger of yourself," she said, in low voice, meeting
him eye to eye.
He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning
his arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle
between the peak which still glowed with sunset light.
"I haven't met a woman of your kind before in ten years," he said
presently. "I've lived on you looks, your motions, the
inflections of your voice. I suppose I've been starved for that
sort of thing and didn't know it till you came. It's been like a
glimpse of heaven to me." He laughed bitterly: and went on: "Of
course, I had to take to drinking and let you see the devil I am.
When I'm sober you would be as safe with me as with York. But the
excitement of meeting you-- I have to ride my emotions to death
so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink stimulates the
imagination, and I drank."
"I'm sorry."
Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously.
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