"Terribly happy."
During that afternoon he had a visitor, a well-dressed dapper little man whom he did not know at first. It was the little Cossack, Murphy.
"Ha! Tom! You remember me?"
"Murphy, you son of a gun! And all dressed up like a plush horse. Don't you kiss me, Murph!"
For the Russian, in his excitement, had almost done so.
Murphy, it appeared, had done well. He had found friends, was in the foreign department of a bank, was learning English rapidly. One lady had been very kind to him; she was not young, but she had a Russian soul. Tom listened, his eyes twinkling, his worries momentarily forgotten.
But there was a suppressed excitement about Murphy. He could not stand still. He darted about here and there, shook hands with his old friends, came back to Tom.
"You will be here tonight?" he asked, in his precise English.
"Sure will. Are you bringing the lady with the Russian disposition?"
"I bring a lady," said Murphy. "Not that one. Another. A very nice lady. I have but just met her, at luncheon today. We shall come tonight."
Tom looked after him as he went rapidly away. So Murphy had forgotten his lady of the circus after all! That was the thing to do, forget them. They came along and played hell with a man's life, and his only course was to forget them.
Out of sheer perversity he kept on his overalls that night. Let the cowboys pull their stuff; him, he was a hostler, a sort of head groom. He was a stable-man. Let Murphy bring his girl, a dozen girls. Girls made no difference in his life. Let them see him as he was.
And it was literally as he was that Kay saw him that night, sitting on an overturned pail behind a tent and rolling a cigarette.
She stood still, looking at him. The little Russian had tactfully disappeared.
