“She ain’t just quite up to it,” was Amelia’s comment, which she probably could not have explained even to herself.

Sheila presently was done with laughter.  She ate a nibble of dinner as soberly as Amelia could have wished, then sat back, her eyes closed with a resolve to think clearly, closely, to some determination of her life.  But Jim’s note, which had so roused her amusement, began to force itself in another fashion upon her.  She discovered that it was an insufferable note.  It insinuated everything, it suggested—­everything.  It was a boastful messenger.  It swaggered male-ishly.  It threw out its chest and smacked its lips.  “See what a sad dog my master is,” it said; “a regular devil of a fellow.”  Sheila found her thoughts confused by anger.  She found that she was too disturbed for any clear decision.  She was terribly weary and full of dread for the long night before her.  And a startled look at her clock told her it was time now to go over to the saloon.

She got up, went to her mirror, smoothed her rippled hair with two strokes of a brush, readjusted her cap, and decided that, for once, a little powder on the nose was a necessity.  Carthy must not see that she had been crying.  As it was, her brilliant color was suspicious, and her eyes, with their deep distended look of tears.  She shut them, drew a breath, put out her light, and went down the back stairs to a narrow alley.  It led from the hotel to the street that ran back of The Aura ... the street to which she had taken young Hilliard the night before.

The alley seemed to Sheila, as she stepped into it from the glare of the electric-lighted hotel, a stream of cool and silvery light.  Above lay a strip of tender sky in which already the stars shook.  In this high atmosphere they were always tremulous, dancing, beating, almost leaping, with a fullness of quick light.  They seemed very near to the edges of the alley walls, to be especially visiting it with their detached regard, peering down for some small divine occasion for influence.  Sheila prayed to them a desperate prayer of human helplessness.

CHAPTER XIII

SYLVESTER CELEBRATES

“Hey, you girl there!  Hi!  Hey!”

These exclamations called in a resonant, deep-chested voice succeeded at last in attracting Sheila’s attention.  She had lingered at the alley’s mouth, shirking her entrance into the saloon, and now she saw, halfway down the short, wide street, a gesticulating figure.

At first, as she obeyed the summons, she thought the summoner a man, but on near view it proved itself a woman, of broad, massive hips and shoulders, dressed in a man’s flannel shirt and a pair of large corduroy trousers, their legs tucked into high cowboy boots.  She wore no hat, and her hair was cut square across her neck and forehead; hair of a dark rusty red, it was, and matched eyes like dark panes of glass before a fire, red-brown and very bright, ruddy eyes in a square, ruddy face, which, with its short, straight, wide-bridged nose, well-shaped lips, square chin, and brilliant teeth, made up a striking and not unattractive countenance.