RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
spected him, and the greater her respect the harder it became to lend herself to mere coquetry. Yet as she thought of her great motive, of Tull, and of that other whose name she had schooled herself never to think of in connection with Milly Erne's avenger, she suddenly found she had no choice. And her creed gave her boldness far beyond the limit to which vanity would have led her.
"Lassiter, I see so little of you now," she said, and was conscious of heat in her cheeks.
"I've been ridin' hard," he replied.
"But you can't live in the saddle. You come in sometimes. Won't you come here to see me—oftener?"
"Is that an order?"
"Nonsense! I simply ask you to come to see me when you find time."
"Why?"
The query once heard was not so embarrassing to Jane as she might have imagined. Moreover, it established in her mind a fact that there existed actually other than selfish reasons for her wanting to see him. And as she had been bold, so she determined to be both honest and brave.
"I've reasons—only one of which I need mention," she answered. "If it's possible I want to change you toward my people. And on the moment I can conceive of little I wouldn't do to gain that end."
How much better and freer Jane felt after that confession! She meant to show him that there was one Mormon who could play a game or wage a fight in the open.
"I reckon," said Lassiter, and he laughed.
It was the best in her, if the most irritating, that Lassiter always aroused.
"Will you come?" She looked into his eyes, and for the life of her could not quite subdue an imperiousness that rose with her spirit. "I never asked so much of any man—except Bern Venters."
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