“Sir,” she said, “how dare you!” At this, Tom Osby stood upon one leg.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said he, at length.  “I didn’t know anybody was in here.  I just come in lookin’ for somebody.”

She did not answer him, but turned upon him the full glance of a deep, dark eye, studying him curiously.

“I don’t live here, ma’am,” resumed Tom.  “I’m camped down the hill by the spring.  I left my compadre there.  I—­I belong to Heart’s Desire, up north of here.  I—­I come along in here this mornin’.  They said there wasn’t any one in the parlor—­they said there might be some one in the parlor, though, maybe.  And I was—­I was—­ma’am, I was lookin’—­I reckon I was lookin’ for you!”

He laid his hat and gun upon the table, and stood with one hand against its edge.  “Yes, I come down from Heart’s Desire,” he began again.

“From where?” broke in a low, sweet voice.  “From Heart’s Desire?  What an exquisite name!  Where is it?  What is it?  That sounds like heaven,” she said.

“It might be, ma’am,” said Tom Osby, simply, “but it ain’t.  The water supply ain’t reg’lar enough.  It’s just a little place up in the mountains.  Heaven, ma’am, I reckon is just now located something like a hundred miles south of Heart’s Desire!” And he laughed so sudden and hearty a man’s laugh at this that it jostled Alicia Donatelli out of all her artificiality, and set the two at once upon a footing.  It seemed to her that, after all, men were pretty much alike, no matter where one found them.

“Sit down,” she said, ceasing to bite at her fingertips, as was her habit when perturbed.  “Tell me about Heart’s Desire.”

“Well, Heart’s Desire, ma’am,” said Tom Osby, “why, it ain’t much.  It’s mostly men.”

“But how do you live?  What do you do?”

“Well, now, I hadn’t ever thought of that.  But now you mention it, I can’t say I really know.  The fellers all seem to get along, somehow.”

“But yourself?”

“Me?  I drive a freight wagon between Las Vegas and Heart’s Desire.  There is stores, you know, at Heart’s Desire, and a saloon.  We held a co’te there, onct.  You see, along of cattle wars and killings, for a good many years back, folks has been kind of shy of that part of the country.  Most of the men easy scared, they went back home to the States.  Some stayed.  And it’s—­why, I can’t rightly explain it to you, ma’am—­but it’s—­it’s Heart’s Desire.”

The face of the woman before him softened.  “It’s a beautiful name,” said she.  “Heart’s Desire!” She said it over and over again, wistfully.  The cadence of her tone was the measure of an irrevocable loss.  “Heart’s Desire!” she whispered—­“I wonder—­

“Tell me,” she cried at length, arising and pacing restlessly, “what do you do at Heart’s Desire?”

“Nothing,” said Tom Osby.  “I just told you, I reckon.”

“Do you have any amusements?  Are there ever any entertainments?”