“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—­and Lord Nick.

“Don’t you see,” said Donnegan, “that I can’t stop now?”

There was a double meaning that sent her color flaring.

He added in a low, tense voice, “I’ve gone too far.  Besides, I’m beginning to hope!”

She paused, then made a little gesture of abandon.

“Then stay, stay!” she whispered with eyes on fire.  “And good luck to you, Mr. Donnegan!”

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