are you doin'
there? Break, now, and git out. This ain't right."

And that was all he ever knew of Signer Peruchini, for the latter
sprang back and away into an immediate oblivion. Tom Osby from that
instant was himself swept on by the glory of this woman's presence.
Confronting her, he stood half trembling, at once almost longing for
warlike action rather than that now grown needful.

Madame Donatelli, for the first time in years jarred from the standards
of her artificial life, and so, suddenly, become woman rather than
actress, fell into a seat, turning toward the newcomer a gaze of
wide-eyed astonishment. She had read in certain journals wild stories
of doings of wild men. Was that sort of thing actually true?

"Sir," she said, "how dare you!" At this, Tom Osby stood upon one leg.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said he, at length. "I didn't know anybody
was in here. I just come in lookin' for somebody."

She did not answer him, but turned upon him the full glance of a deep,
dark eye, studying him curiously.

"I don't live here, ma'am," resumed Tom. "I'm camped down the hill by
the spring. I left my _compadre_ there. I--I belong to Heart's
Desire, up north of here. I--I come along in here this mornin'. They
said there wasn't any one in the parlor--they said there might be some
one in the parlor, though, maybe. And I was--I was--ma'am, I was
lookin'--I reckon I was lookin' for you!"

He laid his hat and gun upon the table, and stood with one hand against
its edge. "Yes, I come down from Heart's Desire," he began again.

"From where?" broke in a low, sweet voice. "From Heart's Desire? What
an exquisite name! Where is it? What is it? That sounds like
heaven," she said.

"It might be, ma'am," said Tom Osby, simply, "but it ain't. The water
supply ain't reg'lar enough. It's just a little place up in the
mountains. Heaven, ma'am, I reckon is just now located something like
a hundred miles south of Heart's Desire!" And he laughed so sudden and
hearty a man's laugh at this that it jostled Alicia Donatelli out of
all her artificiality, and set the two at once upon a footing. It
seemed to her that, after all, men were pretty much alike, no matter
where one found them.

"Sit down," she said, ceasing to bite at her fingertips, as was her
habit when perturbed. "Tell me about Heart's Desire."

"Well, Heart's Desire, ma'am," said Tom Osby, "why, it ain't much.
It's mostly men."

"But how do y