e candle to the mantel,
Johnson lighted his cigar from the burning match between her fingers.

"Oh, Girl, how I'd love to know you!" he suddenly cried with the fire of
love in his eyes.

"But you do know me," was her answer, as she watched the smoke from his
cigar curl upwards toward the ceiling.

"Not well enough," he sighed.

For a brief second only she was silent. Whether she read his thoughts it
would be difficult to say; but there came a moment soon when she could
not mistake them.

"What's your drift, anyway?" she asked, looking him full in the face.

"To know you as Dante knew the lady--'One hour for me, one hour worth
the world,'" he told her, all the while watching and loving her beauty.

At the thought she trembled a little, though she answered with
characteristic bluntness:

"He didn't git it, Mr. Johnson."

"All the same there are women we could die for," insisted Johnson,
dreamily.

The Girl was in the act of carrying her cup to her mouth but put it down
on the table. Leaning forward, she inquired somewhat sneeringly:

"Mr. Johnson, how many times have you died?" Johnson did not have to
think twice before answering. With wide, truthful eyes he said:

"That day on the road to Monterey I said just that one woman for me. I
wanted to kiss you then," he added, taking her hand in his. And, strange
to say, she was not angry, not unwilling, but sweetly tender and modest
as she let it lay there.

"But, Mr. Johnson, some men think so much o' kisses that they don't want
a second kiss from the same girl," spoke up the Girl after a moment's
reflection.

"Doesn't that depend on whether they love her or not? Now all loves are
not alike," reasoned the man in all truthfulness.

"No, but they all have the same aim--to git 'er if they can," contended
the Girl, gently withdrawing her hand.

Silence filled the room.

"Ah, I see you don't know what love is," at length sighed Johnson,
watching the colour come and go from her face.

The Girl hesitated, then answered in a confused, uneven voice:

"Nope. Mother used to say, 'It's a tickling sensation at the heart that
you can't scratch,' an' we'll let it go at that."

"Oh, Girl, you're bully!" laughed the man, rising, and making an attempt
to embrace her. But all of a sudden he stopped and stood with a
bewildered look upon his face: a fierce gale was sweeping the mountain.
It filtered in through the crevices of the walls and doors; the lights
flickered; the