“Hardly,” she looked up at him through her long lashes.

“Well, since that ain’t enough for you,” still with affected resignation, “let me tell you this:  You’re going to dance to bigger crowds and higher class ones than you ever saw before, because you’re going to be advertised proper, see?” And then, sketching out plans with his former bold, optimistic confidence, “We’re going to travel on the other side and travel in style, too, a big touring automobile.  I guess you can show those foreign managers something new in the dancing line.  How would you like to see your name all over London and Paris?  The Black Pearl!  Eh?”

She slipped away from him and took a few buoyant dancing steps.  “Fine!” she laughed.  “It sure sounds good to me.”  Floating nearer to him, she pinched his arm.  “Ain’t you the spellbinder!”

He caught her with one arm.  “Oh, Pearl,” his voice falling to seriousness, “you don’t know how happy you make me.  Honest, I’ve been so plum scared these last few days, I been almost crazy.  I didn’t know, you see, just how much influence your Pop and Flick might have over you, and I got locoed for fear you wouldn’t see me and give me a chance to explain.”

“Pop and Bob Flick kindly took the bother of explaining things off your shoulders, didn’t they?” with a short, vindictive laugh.

“Darn ’em,” bitterly.  “I don’t want to say anything about your Pop, but Flick’s a sneaking coyote, and sooner or later he’ll pay for snooping into my business.  Oh, I’ve cursed myself more than once for letting him tell you, but I never loved a woman before, Pearl, and I couldn’t take the chances, honest I couldn’t.  I hadn’t the nerve.”  There was a passionate sincerity in his voice.

“They’ve been telling me you’ve loved many a woman.”  Her eyes gloomed and she slashed her skirt savagely with the riding crop she held.

“You know,” he whispered, “you know.  I’ve been a fool.  There have been many others, Pearl, I ain’t going to deceive you, but—­there’s never been but one.”

She softened and smiled at him, then her face darkened again.  “But there’s one that stands in the way—­yet,” she said gloomily.

“In the way?  What do you mean?” uncomprehendingly.

“Why, that woman up in Colina?  Don’t she stand between you and me, now, for a while?”

“Not much, she don’t,” emphatically, “not her!”

A light flared in Pearl’s eyes.  “I knew Pop and Bob were up to some of their tricks!  They been doing their best to ram it home that she’ll die before she lets you get a divorce.”

“You bet she will,” muttered Hanson, with concentrated bitterness, and stifled some maledictions under his breath.  “I’ve tried every way, turned every trick known to sharp lawyers for the last six years, trying to get free; but she’s got money, you see, and she can keep her eye on me, so, in one way or another, she’s balked me every time.”