“No,” said Joe, deliberately and impersonally, “I don’t.  Unless you keep remembering to be careful all the time, you’ll follow the first impulse you have, as you did yesterday, and your excuse will be that you never thought any harm would come of it.  He’s in a queer mood; but he will forgive you if you ask him—­”

“Well, ain’t that what I want to do!” she exclaimed.

“I know, I know,” he said, dropping into the desk-chair and passing his hand over his eyes with a gesture of infinite weariness.  “But you must be very careful.  I hunted for him most of the night and all day.  He was trying to keep out of my way because he didn’t want me to find him until he had met this fellow Nashville.  Happy is a hard man to come at when he doesn’t care to be found, and he kept shifting from place to place until I ran him down.  Then I got him in a corner and told him that you hadn’t meant any harm—­which is always true of you, poor woman!—­and I didn’t leave him till he had promised me to forgive you if you would come and ask him.  And you must keep him out of Cory’s way until I can arrange to have him—­Cory, I mean—­sent out of town.  Will you?”

“Why, cert’nly,” she answered, smiling.  “That Nashville’s the vurry last person I ever want to see again—­the fresh thing!” Mrs. Fear’s burden had fallen; her relief was perfect and she beamed vapidly; but Joe marked her renewed irresponsibility with an anxious eye.

“You mustn’t make any mistakes,” he said, rising stiffly with fatigue.

“Not me! I don’t take no more chances,” she responded, tittering happily.  “Not after yesterday.  My! but it’s a load off my shoulders!  I do hate it to have gen’lemen quarrelling over me, especially Mr. Fear.  I never did like to start anything; I like to see people laugh and be friendly, and I’m mighty glad it’s all blown over.  I kind o’ thought it would, all along.  PSHO!” She burst into genuine, noisy laughter.  “I don’t expect either of ’em meant no real harm to each other, after they got cooled off a little!  If they’d met to-day, they’d probably both run!  Now, Mr. Louden, where’s Happy?”

Joe went to the door with her.  He waited a moment, perplexed, then his brow cleared and he said in a low voice:  “You know the alley beyond Vent Miller’s pool-room?  Go down the alley till you come to the second gate.  Go in, and you’ll see a basement door opening into a little room under Miller’s bar.  The door won’t be locked, and Happy’s in there waiting for you.  But remember—­”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she cut him off, loudly.  “I know him!  Inside of an hour I’ll have him laughin’ over all this.  You’ll see!”

When she had gone, he stood upon the landing looking thoughtfully after her.  “Perhaps, after all, that is the best mood to let her meet him in,” he murmured.

Then, with a deep breath, he turned.  The heavy perfume had gone; the air was clear and sweet, and Ariel was pressing her face into the roses again.  As he saw how like them she was, he was shaken with a profound and mysterious sigh, like that which moves in the breast of one who listens in the dark to his dearest music.