“See you next Saturday, Miss Arundel, if I’m alive—­”

Hilliard drummed on the counter with his fingertips and frowned.  His puzzled eyes wove a pattern of inquiry from the men to the girl and back.  One of them, a ruddy-faced, town boy, lingered.  He had had a drop too much of The Aura’s hospitality.  He rested rather top-heavily against the bar and stretched out his hand.

“Aren’t you going to say me a real good-night, Miss Sheila,” he besought, and a tipsy dimple cut itself into his cheek.

“Do go home, Jim,” murmured the barmaid.  “You’ve broken your promise again.  It’s two o’clock.”

He made great ox-eyes at her, his hand still begging, its blunt fingers curled upward like a thirsty cup.

His face was emptied of everything but its desire.

It was perfectly evident that “Miss Sheila” was tormented by the look, by the eyes, by the hand, by the very presence of the boy.  She pressed her lips tight, drew her fine arched brows together, and twisted her fingers.

“I’ll go home,” he asserted obstinately, “when you tell me a proper goo’-night—­not before.”

Her eyes glittered.  “Shall I tell Carthy to turn you out, Jim?”

He smiled triumphantly.  “Uh,” said he, “your watch-dog went out.  Dickie called him to answer the telephone.  Now, will you tell me good-night, Sheila?”

Cosme hoped that the girl would glance at him for help, he had his long steel muscles braced; but, after a moment’s thought—­“And she can think.  She’s as cool as she’s shy,” commented the observer—­she put her hand on Jim’s.  He grabbed it, pressed his lips upon it.

“Goo’-night,” he said, “Goo’-night.  I’ll go now.”  He swaggered out as though she had given him a rose.

The barmaid put her hand beneath her apron and rubbed it.  Cosme laughed a little at the quaint action.

“Do they give you lots of trouble, Miss Arundel?” he asked her sympathetically.

She looked at him.  But her attitude was not so simple and friendly as it had been.  Evidently her little conflict with Jim had jarred her humor.  She looked distressed, angry.  Cosme felt that, unfairly enough, she lumped him with The Enemy.  He wondered pitifully if she had given The Enemy its name, if her experience had given her the knowledge of such names.  He had a vision of the pretty, delicate little thing standing there night after night as though divided by the bar from prowling beasts.  And yet she was known over the whole wide, wild country as “Hudson’s Queen.”  Her crystal, childlike look must be one of those extraordinary survivals, a piteous sort of accident.  Cosme called himself a sentimentalist.  Spurred by this reaction against his more romantic tendencies, he leaned forward.  He too was going to ask the barmaid for a good-night or a greeting or a good-bye.  His hand was out, when he saw her face stiffen, her lips open to an “Oh!” of warning or of fear.  He wheeled and flung up his arm against a hurricane of blows.