“As for terms, the right man can make them for himself,” she concluded, hopelessly:  “Mr. Perris, I think you could be the man for the place.  What do you say to trying?”

He paused, diffidently, and she knew that in the pause he was hunting for polite terms of refusal.

“I’ll tell you how it is.  You’re mighty kind to make the offer.  You haven’t seen much of me and that little bit has been—­pretty rough.”  He laughed away his embarrassment.  “So I appreciate your confidence—­a lot.  But I’m afraid that I’d be a tolerable lot like Hervey.”  He hurried on lest she should take offense.  “You see, I don’t like orders.”

“Of course if it were a man who made the offer to you—­” she began angrily.

He raised his hand.  There were little touches of formal courtesy in him so contrasted with what she had seen of him in action, so at variance with the childishly gaudy clothes he wore, that it put Marianne completely at sea.

“It’s just that I like my own way.  I’ve been a rolling stone all my life.  About the only moss I’ve gathered is what you see.”  He touched the dust-tarnished gold braid on his sombrero and his twinkling eyes invited her to mirth.  But Marianne was sternly silent.  She knew that her color was gone and that her beauty had in large part gone with it; a reflection that did not at all help her mood or her looks.  “I get my fun out of playing a free hand,” he was concluding.  “I don’t like partners.  Not that I’m proud of it, but so you can see where I stand.  If I don’t like a bunkie you can figure why I don’t want a boss.”

She nodded stiffly, and at the unamiable gesture she saw him shrug his shoulders very slightly, his eyes wandered again as though he were seeking for a means to end the interview.

Marianne rose.

“I see your viewpoint, Mr. Perris,” she said coldly.  “And I’m sorry you can’t accept my offer.”

He came to his feet at the same moment, but still he lingered a moment, turning his hat thoughtfully so that she hoped, for an instant, that he was on the verge of reconsidering.  After all, she should have used more persuasion; she was firmly convinced that at heart men are very close to children.  Then his head went up and he shook away the mood which had come over him.

“Some time I’ll come to it,” he admitted.  “But not yet a while.  I take it mighty kind of you to have thought I could fill the bill and—­I’m wishing you all sorts of luck, Miss Jordan.”

“Thank you,” said Marianne, and hated herself for her unbending stiffness.

At the door he turned again.

“I sure hope it’s easy for you to forget songs,” he said.

“Songs?” echoed Marianne, and then turned crimson with the memory.

“’You see,” explained Red Jim Perris, “it’s a bad habit I’ve picked up—­ of doing the first fool thing that comes into my head.  Good-bye, Miss Jordan.”

He was gone.