"I haven't, here. I'm getting rested."

"And at home I suppose you're too busy."

"Being busy is no preventive. Somebody has said that St. Vitus is the patron saint of New York society."

"It must take almost all the time those people have to keep up with the theaters and with the best in poetry and what's being done and thought, and the new books and all that," he surmised.

"I beg your pardon; what was that about poetry and books?"

"Girls like you--society girls, I mean--read everything there is, don't they?"

"Where do you get that extraordinary idea?"

"Why, from knowing you."

"My poor, innocent Ban! If you were to try and talk books and poetry, 'Shakespeare and the musical glasses,' to the average society girl, as you call her, what do you suppose would happen?"

"Why, I suppose I'd give myself away as an ignoramus."

"Heaven save you for a woolly lambkin! The girl would flee, shrieking, and issue a warning against you as a high-brow, a prig, and a hopeless bore. They don't read books, except a few chocolate-cream novels. They haven't the time."

"But you--"

"Oh, I'm a freak! I get away with it because I'm passably good-looking and know how to dress, and do what I please by the divine right of--well, of just doing it. But, even so, a lot of the men are rather afraid of me in their hearts. They suspect the bluestocking. Let 'em suspect! The market is plenty good enough," declared Io flippantly.

"Then you just took up books as a sort of freak; a side issue?" The disappointment in his face was almost ludicrous.

"No." A quiet gravity altered her expression. "I'll tell you about me, if you want to hear. My mother was the daughter of a famous classical scholar, who was opposed to her marriage because Father has always been a man of affairs. From the first, Mother brought me up to love books and music and pictures. She died when I was twelve, and poor Father, who worshiped her, wanted to carry out her plans for me, though he had no special sympathy with them. To make things worse for him, nobody but Mother ever had any control over me; I was spoiled and self-willed and precocious, and I thought the world owed me a good time. Dad's business judgment of human nature saved the situation, he thoroughly understood one thing about me, that I'd keep a bargain if I made it. So we fixed up our little contract; I was to go through college and do my best, and after I graduated, I was to have a free hand and an income of my own, a nice one. I did the college trick. I did it well. I was third in my class, and there wasn't a thing in literature or languages that they could stop me from getting. At eighteen they turned me loose on the world, and here I am, tired of it, but still loving it. That's all of me. Aren't I a good little autobiographer. Every lady her own Boswell!

What are you listening to?"

"There's a horse coming along the old trail," said Banneker.

"Who is it?" she asked. "Some one following us?"

He shook his head. A moment later the figure of a mounted man loomed through the brush. He was young, strong-built, and not ill-looking.

"Howdy, Ban," he said.

Banneker returned the greeting.

"Whee-ew!" shrilled the other, wiping his brow. "This sure does fetch the licker outen a man's hide. Hell of a wet night at the Sick Coyote last night. Why wasn't you over?"

"Busy," replied Banneker.

Something in his tone made the other raise himself from his weary droop.

He sighted Io.

"Howdy, ma'am," he said. "Didn't see there was ladies present."

"Good-morning," said Io.

"Visitin' hereabouts?" inquired the man, eyeing her curiously.

"Yes."

"Where, if I might be bold to ask?"

"If you've got any questions to ask, ask them of me, Fred," directed Banneker.

While there was nothing truculent in his manner, it left no doubt as to his readiness and determination.

Fred looked both sullen and crestfallen.

"It ain't nothin'," he said. "Only, inquiries was bein' made by a gent from a Angelica City noospaper last week."

"Somebody else meant," asserted Banneker. "You keep that in mind, will you? And it isn't necessary that you should mention this lady at all.

Savvy, Fred?"

The other grunted, touched his sombrero to Io and rode on.

"Has a reporter been here inquiring after me?" asked Io.

"Not after you. It was some one else."

"If the newspapers tracked me here, I'd have to leave at once."

"They won't. At least, it isn't likely."

"You'd get me out some way, wouldn't you, Ban?" she said trustfully.

"Yes."

"Ban; that Fred person seemed afraid of you."

"He's got nothing to be afraid of unless he talks too much."

"But you had him 'bluffed.' I'm sure you had. Ban, did you ever kill a man?"

"No."

"Or shoot one?"

"Not even that."

"Yet, I believe, from the way he looked at you, that you've got a reputation as a 'bad man'?"

"So I have. But it's no fault of mine."

"How did you get it?"