“Please!” she said; and he saw that the blue eyes were growing wistful again.

“I’m done,” he said quickly.  “I shan’t put it up to you any more.  I’ll do what I think I ought to do, on my own responsibility.”

But now, woman-like, she crossed quickly to the other side.

“No; you mustn’t deprive me of my chance,” she protested soberly.  “After a little while I shall tell you what I think—­what I think you ought to do.  Only you must give me time.”

His smile came from the depths of a lover’s heart.

“You shall have all the time there is—­and then some, if I can compass it.  Now let’s talk about something else.  I’ve been boring you with this despicable business affair ever since you gave me leave on that foot-race down Plug Mountain Tuesday afternoon.”

“What shall it be?” she inquired gaily.  And then:  “Oh, I know.  One day last summer—­just as we were leaving Chicago in the Nadia—­you had begun to tell me about a certain young woman who had money, and who was—­who was—­”

“—­who was without her peer in all this world,” he finished for her.  “Yes; I remember.”

“Do you still remember her, as you do the conversation?” she went on teasingly.

“I have never lost a day since I first met her.”

“Good Sir Galahad!” she mocked.  “And is she still worth all those sacrifices you said you would be willing to make for her?”

“All, and several more.”

Silence for a little time, while the hoof-beats of a horse fox-trotting behind them drew nearer.  It was the sinister-faced Mexican who ambled into view, and when he overtook the rearmost of the buckboards he was a long time in passing.

“That dreadful man!” murmured Alicia; and she did not go back to the suspended subject until he had trotted on past the caravan.  Then she said slowly, taking her companion’s complete understanding for granted:  “It must be delicious to be away out over one’s depth, like that!”

“It is,” said Ford solemnly.  “It’s like—­well, I’ve never been sick a day in my life since I can remember, but I should think it might be like a—­a sort of beneficent fever, you know.  Haven’t you ever had a touch of it?”

“Possibly—­without recognizing it.  Can you describe the symptoms?”

“Accurately.  One day I awoke suddenly to the realization that there was one woman, in the world:  before that, you know, there had always been a good many, but never just one.  Then I began to discover that this one woman was the embodiment of an ideal—­my ideal.  She said and did and looked all the things I’d been missing in the others.  I wanted to drop everything and run after her.”

“How absolutely idyllic!” she murmured.  “And then?”

“Then I had to come down to earth with a dull, stunning swat, of course.  There were a lot of commonplace, material things waiting to be done, and it was up to me to do them.  Before I saw her, I used to think that nothing could divide time with a man’s work:  that there wouldn’t be any time to divide.  Afterward, I found out my mistake.  Sleeping or waking, every day and all day, she was there:  and the work went on just the same, or rather a whole lot better.”