You feel him around you and behind you and beside you every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel.

Ain't that the straight of it ?" She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder at Ronicky Doone.
"You see," said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, "that our friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of--what shall I say--hypnotism!" A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out.

Then she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.
"If I could talk like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth lingo--I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy.

I'm a pretty simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith.

That's why I want to get you out of this house, where I can talk to you alone." She paused, then shook her head.
"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to be afraid about.