the gent with the smile was to keep going for two thousand, it'd never
come about that he could ever marry you."

She shook her head, still watching him as from a distance.

"If I've crossed the country and followed a hard trail and come here
tonight and stuck my head in a trap, as you might say, for the sake of
a gent like Bill Gregg--fine fellow though he is--what d'you think I
would do to keep a girl like you from life-long misery?"

And he dwelt on the last word until the girl shivered.

"It's what it means," said Ronicky Doone, "life-long misery for you.
And it won't happen--it can't happen."

"Are you mad--are you quite mad?" asked the girl. "What on earth have
I and my affairs got to do with you? Who are you?"

"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone. "I suppose you might say I'm a champion
of lost causes, lady. Why have I got something to do with you? I'll
tell you why: Because, when a girl gets past being just pretty and
starts in being plumb beautiful, she lays off being the business of
any one gent--her father or her brother--she starts being the business
of the whole world. You see? They come like that about one in ten
million, and I figure you're that one, lady."

The far away smile went out. She was looking at him now with a sort of
sad wonder. "Do you know what I am?" she said gravely.

"I dunno," said Ronicky, "and I don't care. What you do don't count.