“Good afternoon!”

“Good afternoon!”

“That last lot of jelly was better than the first,” he said softly.

“Was it?  You must favor vintage jelly!”

“I came to call—­my p.p.c. call—­and to see your garden,” he added.

“Is there any particular feature that interests you?” she asked.  “The date-trees?  The aviary?  The nursery?”

“No,” he answered, “not just yet.  It is very cool here under the umbrella-trees, isn’t it?  I have walked all the way from the Galways and I’ll rest a while, if I may.”

He was no longer the play cavalier in overornamented chaparejos and cart-wheel spurs, but a lame fellow in overalls, who was hitching toward her on crutches, his cowpuncher hat held by the brim and flopping with every step.  But he wore the silk shirt and the string tie, and somehow he made even the overalls seem “dressy.”

“Pray sit down,” she said politely.

Standing his crutches against the table, he accepted the invitation.  She resumed her sewing, eyes on the needle, lips pressed into a straight line and head bending low.  He might have been a stranger on a bench in a public park for all the attention she was paying to him.  She realized that she was rude and took satisfaction in it as the only way of expressing her determination not to reopen a closed incident.

“It’s wonderful—­wonderful!” he observed, in a voice of contemplative awe.

“What is?” she asked.

“Why, how fast you sew!”

“Yes?” she said, as automatically as she stitched.  “Your wound is quite all right?  No danger of infection?”

“I don’t blame you!” he burst out.  His tone had turned sad and urgent.

She looked up quickly, with the flare of a frown.  His remark had brought her out of her pose and she became vivid and real.

“Blame me!” she demanded, sharply, as one who flies to arms.

But she met a new phase—­neither banter, nor fancy, nor unvarying coolness in the face of fire.  He was all contrition and apology.  Must she be the audience to some fresh exhibition of his versatility?

“I do not blame you for feeling the way that you do,” he said.

“How do you know how I feel?” she asked; and as far as he could see into her eyes there was nothing but the flash of sword-points.

“I don’t.  I only know how I think you feel—­how you might well feel,” he answered delicately.  “After Pete let his gun drop in the store I should not have named terms for an encounter.  I should have turned to the law for protection for the few hours that I had to remain in town.”

“But to you that would have been avoiding battle!” she exclaimed.

“Which may take courage,” he rejoined.  “What I did was selfish.  It was bravado, with no thought of your position.”

“It is late to worry about that now.  What does it matter?  I did not want anyone killed on my account, and no one was,” she insisted.  “Besides, you should not be blue,” this with a ripple of satire; “it is not quite all bravado to face Pete Leddy’s gun at twenty yards.”