"To neither wholly, and yet perhaps a little of each," Darrell answered, lightly, not wishing to alarm her or lead her to attach undue importance to the occurrence. "I think Mr. Walcott has an abnormal amount of conceit, and that most of those little mannerisms of his are mainly to attract attention to himself. He was probably trying to produce some sort of an impression on your mind, and to that extent he certainly succeeded, only the impression does not seem to have been as favorable as he perhaps would have wished. No one but a conceited cad would have attempted such a thing, and with your supersensitive nature the effect on you was anything but pleasant, but don't allow yourself to think about it or be annoyed by it. At the same time I would advise you not to place yourself in his power or where he could have any advantage of you. By the way, this is our waltz, is it not?" "It is," Kate replied, rising and watching Darrell as he removed her wrap and prepared to escort her to the ball-room. His playful badinage had not deceived her. As she took his arm she said, in a low tone,-- "You affect to treat this matter rather lightly, but, all the same, you have warned me against this man. 'Forewarned is forearmed,' you know, and no man can ever attempt to harm me or mine with impunity!" Darrell turned quickly in surprise; there was a quality in her tone wholly unfamiliar. "But I fear you exaggerate what I intended to convey," he said, hastily; "I do not know that he would ever deliberately seek to harm you, but he might render himself obnoxious in some way, as he did to-night." She shook her head. "I was taken off guard to-night," she said; "but he had best never attempt anything of the kind a second time!" They were now waiting for the waltz to begin; she continued, in the same low tone: "I have had a western girl's education. When I was a child this place was little more than a rough mining camp, with plenty of desperate characters. My father trained me as he would have trained a boy, and," she added, significantly, with a bright, proud smile, "I am just as proficient now as I was then!" Darrell scarcely heeded the import of her words, so struck was he by the change in her face, which had suddenly grown wonderfully like her father's,--stern, impassive, unrelenting. She smiled, and the look vanished, and for the time he thought no more of it, but as the passing cloud sometimes reveals features in a landscape unnoticed in the sunlight, so it had disclosed a phase of character latent, unguessed even by those who knew her best.