Ben stood as he was.  The smile left his face.  “Would you really—­like me to?” he asked directly.

“I really would, or I wouldn’t have asked you,” Scotty returned, with equal directness.

Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably.  The two sat for a moment in silent companionship.

“Tell me about Rankin,” suggested Scotty at last.

Ben did so.  It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness.

“And—­the man who shot him?” Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the query into words.

“They swung him a few days later.  Things move rather fast out there when they move at all.”

“Were ‘they’ the cowboys?”

“No, the sheriff and the rest.  It was all regular—­scarcely any spectators, even, I heard.”

“And now about yourself.  Shall you be in the city long?”

“I hardly know.  I came partly on business—­but that won’t take me long.”  He looked at his host significantly.  “I also had another purpose in coming.”

Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat.  “Ben,” he said at last, “I’d like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but—­” he paused, looking cautiously in at the open door—­“but Mollie, you know—­It would mean the dickens’ own time with her.”

Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment.  “Thank you,” he replied.  “I understand.  I couldn’t have accepted had you invited me.  Let’s not consider it.”

Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so well grew uncomfortable.  He was conscious that through the curtains of the library window some one was watching him and the new-comer.  He had a mortal dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable.

“How’s the old ranch?” he asked evasively.

“It’s just as you left it.  I haven’t got the heart somehow to change anything.  We use up a good many horses one way and another during a year, and when I get squared around I’m going to start a herd there with one of the boys to look after it.  It was Rankin’s idea too.”

“You expect to keep on ranching, then?”

“Why not?”

“I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with—­You’re young, you know.”

Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately.

“Am I—­young?  Really, I’d never thought of it in that way.”

The Englishman’s feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at nonchalance.

“Well, usually a man at your age—­” He laughed.  “If it were an old fellow like me—­”

“Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat awhile?”

Scotty colored.  “Why, certainly.  What makes you think—­”

“Let’s be natural then.”

Scotty stiffened.  His feet returned to the floor.

“Blair, you forget—­” But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted.  Few people in real life acted a part with Benjamin Blair’s blue eyes upon them.  “Ben,” he said instead, “I’m an ass, and I beg your pardon.  I’ll call Florence.”