"Oh, they're queer things ... funny things! You can't tell where th' man's comin' from that'll meet 'em an' take their heart an' their head. He may be right near 'em all th' time an' they never wake up to it for years; he may come along casual-like, not lookin' for anything, an' see 'em just by chance an' open his heart an' take 'em.... "Once I was in th' Club in Prescott an' I heard a mining engineer from th' East sing a song about some man who lived on th' desert. "'From th' desert I come to thee,' "it went, "'On a stallion shod with fire....' "An' then he goes on with th' finest love song you ever heard, endin' up: "... 'a love that shall not die Till th' sun grows cold, An' th' stars are old, An' th' leaves of th' Judgment Book unfold!' "... That's the sort of guy that upsets a woman who's hungry for happiness. It's that kind of love they want. They'll stand most anything a long, long time; seems like some of 'em loved abuse. But if a real _hombre_ ever comes along ... Look out! "You can't tell, Lytton. This thing love comes like a storm sometimes. A man's interest in a woman may be easy an' not amount to much at first. It's like this breeze comin' in here now; warm an' soft an' gentle, th' mildest, meekest little breeze you've ever felt, ain't it? Well, you can't tell what it'll be by night! "I've seen it just like this, without a dust devil on th' valley or a cloud in th' sky. Then she'd get puffy an' dust would commence to rise up, an' th' sky off there south an' west would begin to look dirty, rusty. Then, away off, you'd hear a whisper, a kind of mutter, growin' louder every minute, an' you'd see trees bend down to one another like they was hidin' their faces from somethin' that scared 'em. Dust would come before it like a wall an' then th' grass would flatten out an' look a funny white under that black and then ... Zwoop! She'd be on you, blowin' an' howlin' an' thunderin' and lightnin' like hell itself.... When an hour before it'd been a breeze just like this." He paused an instant. "So you want to look out ... if you want to keep her. Some man on a 'stallion shod with fire' may ride past an' look into your house an' see her an' crawl down an' commence to sing a love song that'll make her forget all about tryin' to straighten you up.... Some feller who's never counted with her may wake up and go after her as strong as a summer storm. "She's young; she's sweet; she's beau ..." "Say, who told you about my wife?" Lytton demanded, drawing himself up. Bayard stopped with a show of surprise. His earnestness had swept his caution, his sense of the necessity for deception, quite away, but he rallied himself as he answered: "Why, I judge she is. She's stickin' by you like a sweet woman would."