_moue_ at
the wearisome compliment.

"Why do all men say the same things! I'm quite sure I've heard something
like that a hundred times before. In fact, I've come three thousand
miles to get away from it. Say something original, please, even if it be
something wicked!"

He looked at her queerly but she met his gaze with eyes as audacious as
her words. Over at the piano Grace was playing with much tender feeling
one of Chopin's delicious nocturnes; before the open fireplace, Carter,
Brevoort and McVey were discussing the possibilities of a well-managed
ranch. The big room with its happy combination of modern and primitive
amenities was the epitome of cheerfulness and comfort.

"Original? No man can say anything that is that. The possibilities were
exhausted centuries ago. Even. Sin is stereotyped. There have always
been women like you and men like me! What on earth could a man in my
position say to a woman in yours that would be acceptably wicked?"

She smiled inscrutably; there was no abstraction in his manner now. "And
yet you are so bold in other things!" she said, tauntingly. "To the
brave all things are possible."

From far out in the darkness came the weird, long-drawn, mournful howl
of some gaunt timber wolf foraging with his mate. It was very faint and
the others, deeply engrossed in music and money matters, were
unconscious of it. At its eerie repetition she laid her hand lightly on
his arm.

"Listen! That is something new to me at all events. What can it be?"

"Only 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness,'" he whimsically
quoted. "A gray wolf calling to his mate." He laid his hand
restrainingly on hers and leaned so close that his hot breath swept her
cheek.

"I wonder how brave, or wicked, you could really be, you wonderful
creature!" he murmured, insidiously. Her color heightened but she made
no reply. The pulse was very distinct in the veins of the soft little
warm hand lying tremulously beneath his. "Listen! There it is again, the
call of the Wild, the voice out of the Primitive inviting strong souls
back into the boundless realm of the great First Cause. Are you brave
enough to accept it, to go out and be the most gloriously fierce wolf of
them all?"

"Why," she exclaimed, with a labored vivacity that deceived neither of
them, "that is certainly original!"

"With--say with me for a running mate!" His voice was scarcely audible.

"And that is decidedly wicked!" She gently withdrew her hand