“Oh, I don’t care, if he doesn’t.  Only——­” she broke off, slightly confused.  Even to this old wretch she could not say, “It isn’t suitable that you should use my future husband’s Christian name as if he were down on the same level with a man like you.”  She could not be sure that Nick would be her husband, though it seemed practically certain.  Besides, if Hilliard was “Nick” to everybody, it was a token of his popularity; and Nick himself was the last man to forget that he had risen to his present place by climbing up from the lowest rung of the ladder—­the ladder of poverty.  She could not imagine his “putting on airs,” as he would call it, though she thought it might be better if he were less of the “hail-fellow-well-met,” and more of the master in manner among his own cattlemen, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had rushed to his land with the oil boom.

“Who was with him—­some man, I suppose?” she asked of the squirrel poisoner, who stood quietly adoring her with eyes dimmed by drink and years.  He had so settled down on his rheumatic old joints that he had become dwarfish in stature as well as gnarled in shape, and looked a gnomelike thing, gazing up at the tall young woman.

“Oh, yes, it was a man, of course,” Simeon assured her.  “There couldn’t be any women for him who knows you, it seems to me, my lady.  And you were never as handsome as you are this night.  It warms the heart to set eyes on you, like the wine you give me on your birthdays, to drink your health.”

Carmen was pleased with praise, even a squirrel poisoner’s praise.  She could never have too much.

“You needn’t wait for my birthday,” she laughed.  “I don’t mean to have another for a good long time, Sim!  You can have some of that wine to-night.”

“Thank you, my lady.  It’s an anniversary, too,” he mumbled, lowering his husky voice for the last words.  But Carmen heard them.  “You remember that!” she exclaimed, without stopping to think, or perhaps she would not have spoken.

“Oh, yes, my lady, I remember,” he said.  “There’s reasons—­several good reasons—­why I shan’t forget that as long as I live.  You see, things was gettin’ pretty bad for you, and so——­”

“Don’t let’s talk of it, Sim!” she broke in sharply.

“No, my lady, we won’t,” he agreed.  “I was only goin’ to say, things bein’ so bad made what happened a matter for rejoicin’ and not sorrow, to those who wish you well.  That’s all—­that’s all, my lady.”

“Thank you, Sim.  I know you’re fond of me—­and grateful,” Carmen said.  “Things were bad.  I don’t pretend to grieve.  I shouldn’t even have worn mourning, if Madame Vestris, the great palmist in San Francisco, hadn’t told me it would bring me ill luck not to.  I’m glad the year’s up.  I hate black!  This is a better anniversary than a silly old birthday, Sim!”

“Yes, and that reminds me, my lady,” said Simeon, “that I’ve put together enough perfect skins of the squirrels I’ve killed without the dope to make the grand automobile coat I’ve been promisin’ you so long.  Got the last skin cured to-day, as it happened.  Maybe, that’ll bring you good luck!”