was about to look behind the
scenes and she tingled with delight.

"Tell me," she said. "Why not?"

"Well," said Donnegan. "I had to make a noise because I wanted to be
noticed."

She glanced about her; every eye was upon them.

"You've made your point," she murmured. "The whole town is talking of
nothing else."

"I don't care an ounce of lead about the rest of the town."

"Then--"

She stopped abruptly, seeing toward what he was tending. And the heart
of Nelly Lebrun fluttered for the first time in many a month. She
believed him implicitly. It was for her sake that he had made all this
commotion; to draw her attention. For every lovely girl, no matter how
cool-headed, has a foolish belief in the power of her beauty. As a
matter of fact Donnegan had told her the truth. It had all been to win
her attention, from the fight for the mint to the tagging for the dance.
How could she dream that it sprang out of anything other than a wild
devotion to her? And while Donnegan coldly calculated every effect,
Nelly Lebrun began to see in him the man of a dream, a spirit out of a
dead age, a soul of knightly, reckless chivalry. In that small
confession he cast a halo about himself which no other hand could ever
remove entirely so far as Nelly Lebrun was concerned.

"You understand?" he was saying quietly.

She countered with a question as direct as his confession.

"What are you, Mr. Donnegan?"

"A wanderer," said Donnegan instantly, "and an avoider of work."

At that they laughed together. The strain was broken and in its place
there was a mutual excitement. She saw Landis in the distance watching
their laughter with a face contorted with anger, but it only increased
her unreasoning happiness.

"Mr. Donnegan, let me give you friendly advice. I like you: I know you
have courage; and I saw you meet Scar-faced Lewis. But if I were you I'd
leave The Corner tonight and never come back. You've set every man
against you. You've stepped on the toes of Landis and he's a big man
here. And even if you were to prove too much for Jack you'd come against
Lord Nick, as you say yourself. Do you know Nick?"

"No."

"Then, Mr. Donnegan, leave The Corner!"

The music, ending, left them face to face as he dropped his arm from
about her. And she could appreciate now, for the first time, that he was
smaller than he had seemed at a distance, or while he was dancing. He
seemed a frail figure indeed to face the entire banded Corner--an