“Oh, my dear!” Florrie burst into Virginia’s room, flushed and palpitant with her latest emotion.  “He has told me all about it, and do you know, I don’t believe that we have the right to blame him?  Doesn’t it say in the Bible or . . . or somewhere, that greater praise or something shall no man have than he who gives his life for a friend?  It’s something like that, anyway.  Aren’t people just horrid, always blaming other people, never stopping to consider their reasons and impulses and looking at it from their side?  Vidal Nunez was a friend of Mr. Galloway’s; he was in Mr. Galloway’s house.  Of course . . .”

“I thought that you didn’t speak to him any more.”

“I didn’t for a long time.  But if 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.”