"Tell me," she said gently, "what security do _I_ have? You come, by my invitation, it is true, but none the less an intrusion, into my apartments. You demand of me something which no man has a right to demand. Because I am disposed to be gracious, and because I am much disposed to be _ennuyé_, and because Mr. Pakenham is fat, I am willing to take into consideration what you ask. I have never seen a thin gentleman in a woolen nightcap, and I am curious. But no gentleman plays games with ladies in which the dice are loaded for himself. Come, what security shall _I_ have?" I did not pretend to understand her. Perhaps, after all, we all had been misinformed regarding her? I could not tell. But her spirit of _camaraderie_, her good fellowship, her courage, quite aside from her personal charm, had now begun to impress me. "Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this world's goods. All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms. I can not offer gems, as does Señor Yturrio--but, would this be of service--until to-morrow? That will leave him and me with a slipper each. It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!" By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed there that very day for quite another purpose. It was only a little trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of shells and connected by beaded thongs. I had got it among the tribes of the far upper plains, who doubtless obtained the shells, in their strange savage barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes trafficked in shells which found their way as far north as the Saskatchewan. The trinket was curious, though of small value. The baroness looked at it with interest. "How it reminds me of this heathen country!" she said. "Is this all that your art can do in jewelry? Yet it _is_ beautiful. Come, will you not give it to me?" "Until to-morrow, Madam." "No longer?" "I can not promise it longer. I must, unfortunately, have it back when I send a messenger--I shall hardly come myself, Madam." "Ah!" she scoffed. "Then it belongs to another woman?" "Yes, it is promised to another." "Then this is to be the last time we meet?" "I do not doubt it." "Are you not sorry?" "Naturally, Madam!" She sighed, laughing as she did so. Yet I could not evade seeing the curious color on her cheek, the rise and fall of the laces over her bosom. Utterly self-possessed, satisfied with life as it had come to her, without illusion as to life, absorbed in the great game of living and adventuring--so I should have described her. Then why should her heart beat one stroke the faster now? I dismissed that question, and rebuked my eyes, which I found continually turning toward her.