, and exclaimed impulsively, "Why
don't you chuck civilization and strike the out-trail?"

"Why should I?" he asked, unmoved, and rather surprised by the change of
the subject. "I'm quite comfortable here."

"Too comfortable," she retorted with emphasis. "This loafing life of
just-enough-to-live-on doesn't give you a chance to play the man. Go out
and fight and colonize and prove your qualities."

Lambert's color rose again, and his eyes sparkled. "I would if the
chance--"

"Ah, bah, Hercules and Omphale!" interrupted his companion.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind," retorted Miss Greeby, who guessed that he knew what she
meant very well. His quick flush showed her how he resented this
classical allusion to Agnes Pine. "You'd carry her off if you were a
man."

"Chaldea?" asked Lambert, wilfully misunderstanding her meaning.

"If you like. Only don't try to carry her off at night. Garvington says
he will shoot any burglar who comes along after dark."

"I never knew Garvington had anything to do with Chaldea."

"Neither did I. Oh, I think you know very well what I mean."

"Perhaps I do," said the young man with an angry shrug, for really her
interference with his affairs seemed to be quite unjustifiable. "But I
am not going to bring a woman I respect into the Divorce Court."

"Respect? Love, you mean to say."

Lambert stopped, and faced her squarely. "I don't wish to quarrel with
you, Clara, as we are very old friends. But I warn you that I do possess
a temper, and if you wish to see it, you are going the best way to get
what you evidently want. Now, hold your tongue and talk of something
else. Here is Chaldea."

"Watching for you," muttered Miss Greeby, as the slight figure of the
gypsy girl was seen advancing swiftly. "Ha!" and she snorted
suspiciously.

"Rye!" cried Chaldea, dancing toward the artist. "Sarishan rye."

Miss Greeby didn't understand Romany, but the look in the girl's eyes
was enough to reveal the truth. If Lambert did not love his beautiful
model, it was perfectly plain that the beautiful model loved Lambert.

"O baro duvel atch' pa leste!" said Chaldea, and clapped her slim hands.

CHAPTER III.

AN UNEXPECTED RECOGNITION.

"I wish you wouldn't speak the calo jib to me, Chaldea," said Lambert,
smiling on the beautiful eager face. "You know I don't understand it."

"Nor I," put in Miss Greeby in her manly tones. "What does Oh baro devil,
and all the rest of it mean?"