“You’re too good to me, Morgan,” she said, and meant it.  “But why do we need any more money?  We’ve got everything now.”

“Everything?” he said, significantly; and his eyes became two narrow slits as he looked at her.

She toyed with her salad.  She hoped he was not going to get into one of his fiendishly unpleasant moods.

“Well,” she ventured, “as much as anyone could reasonably want.  This house, the garden, friends—­”

“Yes,” he sneered, “but not much love.”  The butler had tactfully withdrawn.  “Why don’t you love me, Lucia?”

“I do—­in a way.  Oh, let’s don’t go into all that again, Morgan.  We’ve had it out so many times.  What’s the use?”

“Is there anyone else?” he asked.  “If I thought there was....”  He lifted his glass again.

“You know there isn’t,” she protested.

He appraised her across the table, beautiful in a blue gown which just matched her eyes, her throat adorned with a string of pearls he had given her on the anniversary of their marriage.

“I don’t see how a woman as lovely as you can be so cold,” he said.  “You could do anything with men.”

She tried to smile.  “But I don’t want to.  Women—­good women—­don’t like to play with fire.  It’s only adventuresses who dare to face danger....  But let’s talk about Arizona.  How good it will be to get out of this hothouse of the East, and see real people—­real flesh-and-blood men and women.”

“Yes.  The folks down there know more about life in a day than we do in all our pitiful lives.  You’ve got to live close to nature to understand human nature.  Simple, isn’t it?”

“Very.  We’re all so false up here.  I get so tired of it, Morgan.  Maybe down there we’ll come to a better understanding of each other.  Maybe....”

“That’s what I was hoping.  So you’d like to go—­really?”

“Yes, indeed.  It’ll be hot, that’s all.  But I won’t mind that.  Anything to get away for awhile.”

Two days later they had started.  The land was green with early summer, in that rich fullness which makes the heart almost sick with ecstasy.  The farther west they went, the wilder the country grew; and when they finally dipped down into Arizona, Lucia looked from the train window, her face alight with joy.  Such scenic variety she had never dreamed of.  One moment they were looking at the wonderful mesas and superb canyons; the next they seemed to pass through dry gullies and great shallow basins.  Then there would come long, weary levels of sand that gleamed in the sun; and far away she would behold tremendous buttes.  The valleys they passed through were verdant and lovely.  Cattle grazed here in a calm peace.  It was as if the rest of the world were shut out, and in this quiet land a special blessing had come down.  The peace of it, the stillness of it crowded in upon her.  She had been to California, but always she had traveled by a northern route, and