“No.”

“Twice, then?  Think hard; there must have been at least two little quickenings of the heartbeats in all that time.”

“No.”

“Still no?  That reduces it to one—­the charming Miss Dawson——­”

“You might spare her, even if you are not willing to spare me.  You know well enough there has never been any one but you, Eleanor; that there never will be any one but you.”

The train was passing the western confines of the waterless tract, and a cool breeze from the snowcapped Timanyonis was sweeping across the open platform.  It blew strands of the red-brown hair from beneath the closely fitting travelling-hat; blew color into Miss Brewster’s cheeks and a daring brightness into the laughing eyes.

“What a pity!” she said in mock sympathy.

“That I can’t measure up to your requirements of the perfect man?  Yes, it is a thousand pities,” he agreed.

“No; that isn’t precisely what I meant.  The pity is that I seem to you to be unable to appreciate your many excellencies and your—­constancy.”

“I think you were born to torment me,” he rejoined gloomily.  “Why did you come out here with your father?  You must have known that I was here.”

“Not from any line you have ever written,” she retorted.  “Alicia Ford told me, otherwise I shouldn’t have known.”

“Still, you came.  Why?  Were you curious?”

“Why should I be curious, and what about?—­the Red Desert?  I’ve seen deserts before.”

“I thought you might be curious to know what disposition the Red Desert was making of such a failure as I am,” he said evenly.  “I can forgive that more easily than I can forgive your bringing of the other man along to be an on-looker.”

“Herbert, you mean?  He is a good boy, a nice boy—­and perfectly harmless.  You’ll like him immensely when you come to know him better.”

“You like him?” he queried.

“How can you ask—­when you have just called him ’the other man’?”

Lidgerwood turned in his chair and faced her squarely.

“Eleanor, I had my punishment over a year ago, and I have been hoping you would let it suffice.  It was hard enough to lose you without being compelled to stand by and see another man win you.  Can’t you understand that?”

She did not answer him.  Instead, she whipped aside from that phase of the subject to ask a question of her own.

“What ever made you come out here, Howard?”

“To the superintendency of the Red Butte Western?  You did.”

“I?”

“Yes, you.”

“It is ridiculous!”

“It is true.”

“Prove it—­if you can; but you can’t.”

“I am proving it day by day, or trying to.  I didn’t want to come, but you drove me to it.”

“I decline to take any such hideous responsibility,” she laughed lightly.  “There must have been some better reason; Miss Dawson, perhaps.”