A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight.

“Hello, Mabel!” said he.  “Kind of late for you to be out, ain’t it?”

“I—­I am just going to the drug store,” said Nevada, hurrying past him.

The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated.  Does it prove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from Adam’s rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?

Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada’s speed one-half.  She made zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a pinon sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully.  Suddenly the studio-building loomed before her, a familiar landmark, like a cliff above some well-remembered canon.  The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was darkened and silent.  The elevator stopped at ten.

Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmly at the door numbered “89.”  She had been there many times before, with Barbara and Uncle Jerome.

Gilbert opened the door.  He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a green shade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth.  The pipe dropped to the floor.

“Am I late?” asked Nevada.  “I came as quick as I could.  Uncle and me were at the theatre this evening.  Here I am, Gilbert!”

Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act.  He changed from a statue of stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle.  He admitted Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes.  A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an easel, where the artist had been sketching in crayon.

“You wanted me,” said Nevada simply, “and I came.  You said so in your letter.  What did you send for me for?”

“You read my letter?” inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.

“Barbara read it to me.  I saw it afterward.  It said:  ’Come to my studio at twelve to-night, and do not fail.’  I thought you were sick, of course, but you don’t seem to be.”

“Aha!” said Gilbert irrelevantly.  “I’ll tell you why I asked you to come, Nevada.  I want you to marry me immediately—­to-night.  What’s a little snow-storm?  Will you do it?”

“You might have noticed that I would, long ago,” said Nevada.  “And I’m rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself.  I surely would hate one of these flowery church noon-weddings.  Gilbert, I didn’t know you had grit enough to propose it this way.  Let’s shock ’em—­it’s our funeral, ain’t it?”

“You bet!” said Gilbert.  “Where did I hear that expression?” he added to himself.  “Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little ’phoning.”

He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon the lightnings of the heavens—­condensed into unromantic numbers and districts.