"
"I wonder," said Maud Barrington, glancing out across the prairie which
was growing dusky now, "why you took the trouble to call them up for
me?"
The Colonel smiled dryly. "I never saw a Courthorne who could not
catch a woman's eye, or had any undue diffidence about making the most
of the fact, and that is partly why they have brought so much trouble
on everybody connected with them. Further, it is unfortunate that
women are not infrequently more inclined to be gracious to the sinner
who repents, when it is worth his while, than they are to the honest
man who has done no wrong. Nor do I know that it is only pity which
influences them. Some of you take an exasperating delight in
picturesque rascality."
Miss Barrington laughed, and fearlessly met her uncle's glance. "Then
you don't believe in penitence?"
"Well," said the Colonel dryly, "I am, I hope, a Christian man, but it
would be difficult to convince me that the gambler, cattle-thief, and
whisky-runner who ruined every man and woman who trusted him will be
admitted to the same place as clean-lived English gentlemen. There
are, my dear, plenty of them still."
Barrington spoke almost fiercely, and then flushed through his tan,
when the girl looking into his eyes smiled a little. "Yes," she said,
"I can believe it, because I owe a good deal to one of them."
The ring in the girl's voice belied the smile, and the speech was
warranted, for, dogmatic, domineering, and vindictive as he was apt to
be occasionally, the words he had used applied most fitly to Colonel
Barrington.
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