“No!” gravely denied the man.

They had come to an arroyo containing a considerable stream of muddy water, and Law was forced to get out to plug the carburetor and stop the oil-intakes to the crankcase.  This done, Alaire ran the machine through on the self-starter.  When Jose’s “Carambas!” and Dolores’s shrieks had subsided, and they were again under way, Mrs. Austin, it seemed, had regained her good humor.

“You will receive no more of my favorite authors,” she told Dave, spitefully.  “I’ll keep them to read myself.”

“You like knights and—­chivalry and such things, don’t you?”

“Chivalry, yes.  In the days when I believed in it I used to cry over those romances.”

“Don’t you still believe in chivalry?”

Alaire turned her eyes upon the questioner, and there were no girlish illusions in them.  “Do you?” she queried, with a faint curl of her lip.

“Why—­yes.”

She shook her head.  “Men have changed.  Nowadays they are all selfish and sordid.  But—­I shouldn’t generalize, for I’m a notorious man-hater, you know.”

“It seems to me that women are just as selfish as men—­perhaps more so—­in all but little things.”

“Our definitions of ‘little things’ may differ.  What do you call a big thing?”

“Love!  That’s the biggest thing in the world,” Law responded, promptly.

“It seems to be so considered.  So you think women are selfish in love?” He nodded, whereupon she eyed him speculatively.  “Let us see.  You are a man—­how far would you go for the woman you loved?”

“The limit!”

Mrs. Austin frowned at this light-seeming answer.  “I suppose you mean that you would make any sacrifice?”

“Yes; that’s it.”

“Would you give up the woman herself, if you considered it your duty?”

“No.  There couldn’t be any duty higher than love—­to my way of thinking.  But you shouldn’t take me as a specimen.  I’m not a good representative of my sex.”

“I think you are a very good one,” Alaire said, quietly, and Dave realized that no flattery was intended.  Although he was willing to talk further on this subject, Mrs. Austin gave him no opportunity of airing his views.  Love, it appeared, was a thing she did not care to discuss with him on their footing of semi-intimacy.

Despite the rough roads, they made fair time, and the miles of cactus and scrawny brush rolled swiftly past.  Occasionally a lazy jack-rabbit ambled out of his road-side covert and watched them from a safe distance; now and then a spotted road-runner raced along the dusty ruts ahead of them.  The morning sun swung higher, and by midday the metal of the automobile had become as hot as a frying-pan.  They stopped at various goat-ranches to inquire about Adolfo Urbina, and at noon halted beside a watercourse for lunch.

Dave was refilling the radiator when he overheard Jose in conversation with Mrs. Austin.