you could have only seen the way he
always looks at me when I bump into him. Virgie, I believe he is sad
and lonely and that he would like to be good if people would only give
him the chance. Why, he is human, after all, you know."

Virginia began to ask herself if Galloway were merely amusing himself
with Florrie or if the man were really interested in her. It did not
seem likely that a girl like Florrie would appeal to a man like him;
and yet, why not? There is at least a grain of truth, if no more, in
the old saw of the attraction of opposites. And it was scarcely more
improbable that he should be interested in her than that she should
allow herself to be ever so slightly moved by him. Furthermore, in its
final analysis, emotion is not always to be explained.

Virginia set herself the task of watching for any slightest development
of the man's influence over the girl. She saw Florrie almost daily,
either at the hotel to which Florrie had acquired the habit of coming
in the cool of the afternoons or at the Engle home. And for the sake
of her little friend, and at the same time for Elmer's sake, she threw
the two youngsters together as much as possible. They quarrelled
rather a good deal, criticised each other with startling frankness, and
grew to be better friends than either realized. Elmer was a vaquero
now, as he explained whenever need be or opportunity arose, wore chaps,
a knotted handkerchief about a throat which daily grew more brown,
spurs as large and noisy as were to be encountered on San Juan's
street, and his right hip pocket bulged. None of the details escaped
Florrie's eyes . . . he called her "Fluff" now and she nicknamed him
"Black Bill" . . . and she never failed to refer to them mockingly.

"They tell me, Black Bill," she said innocently, "that you fell off
your horse yesterday. I was so _sorry_."

She had offered her sympathy during a lull in the conversation, drawing
the attention of her father, mother, and Virginia to Elmer, whose face
reddened promptly.

"Florrie!" chided Mrs. Engle, hiding the twinkle in her own eyes.

"Oh, her," said Elmer with a wave of the hand. "I don't mind what
Fluff says. She's just trying to kid me."

Toward the end of the evening, having been thoughtful for ten minutes,
Elmer adopted Florrie's tactics and remarked suddenly and in a voice to
be heard much farther than his needed to carry:

"Say, Fluff. Saw an old friend of yours the other day." An