nswered Mrs. Hardesty sweetly, "I prefer to
pay, if you don't mind."

"Your privilege," conceded Rimrock, "this is a fine, large, free
country. We try to give 'em all what they want."

"Yes, it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't the coloring wonderful! And have
you spent all your life on these plains? Can't we sit down here
somewhere? I'm just dying to talk with you. And I have business to
talk over, too."

"Oh, not here!" exclaimed Rimrock as she glanced about the lobby.
"This may not be the Waldorf, but we've got some class all the same.
Come up to the balcony--built especially for the ladies--say, how's
friend Buckbee and the rest?"

And then with the greatest gallantry in the world he escorted her to
Mary's own balcony. There was another, across the well, but he did not
even think of it. He had forgotten that Mary was in the world. As
they sat in the dim alcove he found himself telling long stories and
listening to the gossip of New York. Every word that he said was
received with soft laughter, or rapt silence or a ready jest; and when
she in her turn took the conversation in hand he found her sharing with
him a new and unseen world. It was a woman's world, full of odd
surprises. Everything she did seemed quite sweet and reasonable and at
the same time daring and bizarre. She looked at things differently,
with a sort of worldly-wise tolerance and an ever-changing, provocative
smile. Nothing seemed to shock her even when, to try her, he moved
closer; and yet she could understand.

It was a revelation to Rimrock, the laughing way she restrained him;
and yet it baffled him, too. They sat there quite late, each delving
into the mystery of the other's personality and mind, and as the lower
lights were switched off and the alcove grew dimmer, the talk became
increasingly intimate. A vein of poetry, of unsuspected romance,
developed in Rimrock's mind and, far from discouraging it or seeming to
belittle it, Mrs. Hardesty responded in kind. It was a rare experience
in people so different, this exchange of innermost thoughts, and as
their voices grew lower and all the world seemed far away, they took no
notice of a ghost.

It was a woman's form, drifting past in the dark corridor where the
carpet was so thick and soft. It paused and passed on and there was a
glint of metal, as of a band of steel over the head. Except for that
it might have been any woman, or any uneasy ghost. For night is the
time the dead