Denver, how was I to find them? I keenly
regretted the week I had lost. I was sure that Harry would avoid any
chance of publicity and would probably shun the big hotels. And Denver
is not a village.

It was the beauty of Le Mire that saved me. Indeed, I might have
foreseen that; and I have but poorly portrayed the force of her
unmatchable fascination unless you have realized that she was a woman
who could pass nowhere without being seen; and, seen, remembered.

I made inquiries of the manager of the hotel, of course, but was
brought up sharply when he asked me the names of my friends for whom I
was asking. I got out of it somehow, some foolish evasion or other,
and regarded my task as more difficult than ever.

That same evening I dined at the home of my cousin, Hovey Stafford, who
had come West some years before on account of weak lungs, and stayed
because he liked it. I met his wife that evening for the first time;
she may be introduced with the observation that if she was his reason
for remaining in the provinces, never did man have a better one.

We were on the veranda with our after-dinner cigars. I was
congratulating Hovey on the felicity of his choice and jocularly
sympathizing with his wife.

"Yes," said my cousin, with a sigh, "I never regretted it till last
week. It will never be the same again."

Mrs. Hovey looked at him with supreme disdain.

"I suppose you mean Senora Ramal," said she scornfully.

Her husband, feigning the utmost woe, nodded mournfully; whereupon she
began humming the air of the Chanson du Colonel, and was stopped by a
smothering kiss.

"And who is the Senora Ramal?" I asked.

"The most beautiful woman in the world," said Mrs. Hovey.

This from a woman who was herself beautiful! Amazing! I suppose my
face betrayed my thought.

"It isn't charity," she smiled. "Like John Holden, I have seen
fire-balloons by the hundred, I have seen the moon, and--then I saw no
more fire-balloons."

"But who is she?"

Hovey explained. "She is the wife of Senor Ramal. They came here some
ten days ago, with letters to one or two of the best families, and
that's all we know about them. The senora is an entrancing mixture of
Cleopatra, Sappho, Helen of Troy, and the devil. She had the town by
the ears in twenty-four hours, and you wouldn't wonder at it if you saw
her."

Already I felt that I knew, but I wanted to make sure.

"Byron has described her," I suggested, "in Childe Har