n
Macartney, the new mine superintendent, too, if the girl sitting by the
fire had not seen Marcia in the doorway and risen to her feet.

For she floated up, effortlessly, unconsciously, to the very tips of her
toes, and stood so--like Pavlova!

CHAPTER III

DUDLEY'S MINE: AND DUDLEY'S GOLD

I have stared my eyes blind for her,
Bridled my body alive for her,
Starved my soul to the rind for her--
Do I lose all?

_The Lost Lover._

I could feel Marcia's satisfied, significant smile through the back of
my neck as I shook hands with Dudley, and was introduced in turn to Miss
Brown--the last name for her, even without the affected Paulette, though
I might not have thought of it but for Marcia--and to Macartney, the new
incumbent of Thompson's shoes. Dudley, little and fat, in the dirty
boots he had worn all day, and just a little loaded, told me to wait
till the morning or go to the devil, when I asked about the mine.
Charliet banged the food on the table for supper--Marcia despised
housekeeping, and if the living room had been reformed nothing else
had--and I sat down in silence and ate. At least I shovelled food into
my famished stomach. My attention was elsewhere.

Paulette Brown sat beside Dudley. She was just twice as pretty as I had
realized, even when the first sight of her struck me dumb. Her eyes were
as dark as indigo, in the lamplight, and a marvellous rose color flitted
in her cheeks as she spoke or was silent. She had wonderful hands, too,
slim and white, without a sign of a bone at the wrists; but I had a
curious feeling that they were the very strongest hands I had ever seen
on a girl. Remembering Dudley, it hurt me to look at her; and suddenly
something else hurt me worse, that I had been a fool not to have thought
of before. Macartney, the mine superintendent, was new there; I knew no
more of him than I did of Paulette Brown--not so much, perhaps, thanks
to Marcia--and it came over me that he might have been the man for whom
she had taken me to-night, and that it was he she had crept out into the
dark to speak to in secret. I looked at him over my coffee cup, and
there was something about him I did not like.

He was a tall man, very capable-looking, as I said; extremely fair and
rather handsome, with hard, grayish eyes that looked straight at you
when he spoke. He had a charming laugh--yet when he laughed I saw
suddenly what it was that I did not like about him; and