u because you got lost with me--and if you're
trying to put anything over, you might as well stop now."

Maria Angelina stopped. It seemed to her that she should die of shame.

Dazedly she stood and looked at him through the darkness out of which a
few drops of rain were again falling.

"You just forget it and get a bit of rest," Johnny Byrd advised
brusquely. "Hurry in out of the wet. That thing's going to leak again,"
and he nodded jerkily up at the sky.

He tugged open the door, and stricken as a wounded creature crawling to
shelter Maria Angelina bent her head and stumbled across the threshold.

"In you go," he said with a more cheerful air. "Wrap yourself up as warm
as you can and I'll follow----"

She was within the doorway when these words came. She turned and saw
that he was stooping to enter.

"I shall do quite well, Signor," she found her voice quickly to say.
"You need not come in."

"Need not----?" He appeared caught with fresh amazement. "Judas, where
do you think I'm going to stay? Out in the rain?"

"Certainly not in here, Signor."

Desperation lent Maria Angelina sudden fire. "You must be mad, Signor!"
she told him fiercely.

"And you madder. You don't think I'm going to stay"--he jerked his head
backward--"out in the wet?"

"But naturally. You are a man. It is your place."

"My place--you little Wop! A man! I'd be a dead one." The words of a
humorous lecturer smote his memory and with harsh merriment he quoted,
"'Good-night, Miss Middleton, said I, as I buttoned her carefully into
her tent and went out to sleep upon a cactus.' . . . None of that stuff
for mine," and without more ado Johnny Byrd lowered his head to pass
under the doorway.

There was a gasp from the interior.

"Ri-Ri, listen to me!" he demanded upon the threshold. "You're
raving--loco--nuts! There's no harm in my huddling under the same roof
with you--it's a damn necessity. I'm not going to hold hands and I'm
not going to kiss you. If you've got any drawn swords you can lay their
blades between us. You turn your face to the wall and forget all about
it and I'll do the same."

"Signor, stay without!"

"Got a dagger in your garter? . . . Ri-Ri, listen to me. You're
absolutely wrong in the head. Be sensible. Have a heart. I'm going to
get some rest."

"It does not matter what you say or what you intend. You do not need to
reassure me that you will not kiss me, Signor. That will not happen
again." Maria Angelina's voic