“What’s the matter?” she inquired.

“Big Lars never told you Hunker was low grade,” he declared.

The girl flushed; she tossed her dark head defiantly.  “Well, what of it?”

“Simply this—­Tom and Jerry and the McCaskeys have struck rich pay.”

“Indeed?”

“You lied to me.”

Laure’s lips parted slowly in a smile.  “What did you expect?  What would any girl do?” She laid a caressing hand upon his arm.  “I don’t care how much they make or how poor you are—­”

Pierce disengaged her grasp.  “I care!” he cried, roughly.  “I’ve lost my big chance.  They’ve made their piles and I’m—­well, look at me.”

“You blame me?”

He stared at her for a moment.  “What’s the difference whether I blame you or myself?  I’m through.  I’ve been through for some time, but—­this is curtain.”

“Pierce!”

Impatiently he flung her off and strode out of the theater.

Laure was staring blindly after him when Joe McCaskey spoke to her.  “Have a dance?” he inquired.

She undertook to answer, but her lips refused to frame any words; silently she shook her head.

“What’s the idea?  A lovers’ quarrel?” McCaskey eyed her curiously, then he chuckled mirthlessly.  “You can come clean with me.  I don’t like him any better than you do.”

“Mind your own business,” stormed the girl in a sudden fury.

“That’s what I’m doing, and minding it good.  I’ve got a lot of business—­with that rat.”  Joe’s sinister black eyes held Laure’s in spite of her effort to avoid them; it was plain that he wished to say more, but hesitated.  “Maybe it would pay us to get acquainted,” he finally suggested.  “Frank and me and the Count are having a bottle of wine upstairs.  Better join us.”

“I will,” said Laure, after a moment.  Together they mounted the stairs to the gallery above.

CHAPTER XXIII

“Wal, w’at I tol’ you?” ’Poleon Doret exclaimed, cheerfully.  “Me, I’m cut off for poor man.  If one dose El Dorado millionaire’ give me his pay-dump, all de gold disappear biffore I get him in de sluice-box.  Some people is born Jonah.”  Despite this melancholy announcement ’Poleon was far from depressed.  On the contrary, he beamed like a boy and his eyes were sparkling with the joy of again beholding his “sister.”

He had returned from the hills late this evening and now he had come to fetch Rouletta from her work.  This was his first opportunity for a word with her alone.

The girl was not unmoved by his tale of blighted expectations; she refused, nevertheless, to accept it as conclusive.  “Nonsense!” she said, briskly.  “You know very well you haven’t prospected your claim for what it’s worth.  You haven’t had time.”