"Cook tent fare must grow rather monotonous," his low, drawling voice stopped her. "I suggest relief--supper with me after the last performance tonight. I am stopping at the governor's mansion, and have the use of one of the official limousines. Credentials enough?" He raised his eyebrows whimsically but his detaining grasp of her arm was not nearly so gentle as his voice.
"No, no!" Sally cried. "I--I'm not that kind of girl! Please let me go--"
"Oh, spirit of H. L. Mencken, hear me!" the New Yorker prayed. "Do girls in the middle west really say that still? I wouldn't have believed it! 'I'm not that kind of girl!'" he repeated, laughing delightedly. "Of course you aren't, darling! No girl ever is! And heaven forbid that I should be the sort of man--fellow, you say out here?--that you evidently believe I am! Now that we understand each other, I again suggest supper, a long, cooling drive in the governor's choicest limousine--the old boy does himself rather well in cars, at the expense of the state--and a continuation of my extremely accurate reading of your future."
"No!" Sally flared, her timidity submerged in anger. "Let me go this minute! I don't like you! I hate you! If you don't turn loose my arm, I'll--I'll scream 'Hey rube'--"
"What a dire threat!" the New Yorker laughed with genuine amusement. "Am I the rube? Is that your idea of a taunt so crushing that--"
"It means," Sally said with cold fury, "that every man connected with the carnival will rush into this tent and--and simply tear you to pieces! It's the S O S signal of the circus and carnival, and it always works! Now--will you let me go? I swear I'll scream 'Hey, rube!' if you don't--"
"And I had planned such a delicious supper," the New Yorker mourned mockingly as he slowly released her arm, as if reluctant to forego the pleasure that rounded slimness and smoothness gave his highly educated fingers.
Sally cried a little in the dress tent, but she was too angry to give way utterly to tears. The thought which stung her pride most hurtingly was that the New Yorker had seen something bad in her eyes, something of the mother of whose shame she was a living witness.
"But--I guess I showed him!" she told herself fiercely as she dabbed fresh brown powder on her tear-streaked face. "He won't dare bother me again."