From the beginning each was ready, perhaps more than ready, to like the
other. Her eyes, whether they smiled or grew suddenly grave, pleased
him; always were they fearless. He sensed that beneath the external
soft beauty of a very lovely young woman there was a spirit of
hardihood in every sense worthy of the success which she had planned
bare-handed to make for herself, and in the man's estimation no quality
stood higher than a superb independence. On her part, there was first
a definite surprise, then a glow of satisfaction that in this virile
arm of the law there was nothing of the blusterer. She set him down as
a quiet gentleman first, as a sheriff next. She enjoyed his low,
good-humored laugh and laughed back with him, even while she
experienced again the unaccustomed thrill at the sheer physical bigness
of him, the essentially masculine strength of a hardy son of the
southwestern outdoors. Not once had he referred to the affair at the
Casa Blanca or to his part in it; not a question did she ask him
concerning it. He told himself that so utterly human, so perfectly
feminine a being as she must be burning with curiosity; she marvelled
that he could think, speak of anything else. When together they rose
from the table they were alike prepared, should circumstance so direct,
to be friends.
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