Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the past weeks. "Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said. "No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He passed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these days. He thinks a lot of her." "Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher. "Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my bein' here." "Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she likes you fine." When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie could bank on without fail it was his little boss. CHAPTER XVIII BEATRICE GIVES AN OPTION It was not until Johnnie had laid the case before Miss Whitford and restated it under the impression that she could not have understood that his confidence ebbed. Even then he felt that he must have bungled it in the telling and began to marshal his facts a third time. He had expected an eager interest, a quick enthusiasm. Instead, he found in his young mistress a spirit beyond his understanding. Her manner had a touch of cool disdain, almost of contempt, while she listened to his tale. This was not at all in the picture he had planned. She asked no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell met with chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear to her that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drink for her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones. Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtruded unduly from his friend's story. Even the Runt felt this. He began to perceive himself a helpless medium of wrong impressions. When he tried to explain he made matters worse. "I suppose you know that when the manager of your apartment house finds out she's there he'll send her packing." So Beatrice summed up when she spoke at last. "No, ma'am, I reckon not. You see we done told him she is Clay's sister jes' got in from the West," the puncher explained. "Oh, I see." The girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted a trifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don't think I care to have anything to do with your arrangements." "She's an awful pretty cute little thing," the puncher added, hoping to modify her judgment. "Indeed!"