which could be the more deadly because of its rare use. He was not
easily moved, he viewed life from the heights of a philosophy which could
separate the petty from the prodigious. His reputation was not wholly
disquieting; he was of the goats, he had sometimes been found with the
sheep, he preferred to be numbered with the transgressors. Like Pierre,
his one passion was gambling. There were legends that once or twice in
his life he had had another passion, but that some Gorgon drew out his
heartstrings painfully, one by one, and left him inhabited by a pale
spirit now called Irony, now Indifference--under either name a fret and
an anger to women.

At last Blanche's attacks on Jacques called out anxious protests from
men like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche,
there's a devil in Jacques. Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll
shoot you as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarlton over
there."

And Blanche replied: "When he does that, what will you do, Joe?"

"Do? Do?" The man stroked his beard softly. "Why, give him ditto--
cold."

"Well, then, there's nothing to row about, is there?" And Soldier Joe
was not on the instant clever enough to answer her sophistry; but when
she left him and he had thought awhile, he said, convincingly:

"But where would you be then, Blanche? . . . That's the point."

One thing was known and certain: Blanche was earning her living by
honest, if not high-class, labour. Weir the tavern-keeper said she was