"Oh, my interest is on my mother's side," said the Tyro hastily. "That's why I'm buying the property." "You're not!" said the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. Her companion moved back apprehensively. "Can you pay a million dollars for it?" "No. Can you?" "Never mind. Dad said he'd get it for me if--if--well, he promised to, anyway." "If you'd marry the marionette who recently faded from view?" "Ye--yes." "Far be it from me," said the Tyro modestly, "to enter the lists against so redoubtable a champion on such short notice. Still, if you _are_ marrying real estate, rather than wealth, intellect, or beauty, I may mention that I've got an option on that very house, and that it will cost me pretty much every cent I've made since I left college to pay for it." "That you've made? Haven't you got any money of your own?" "Whose do you suppose the money I've made is?" "But anything to _live_ on, I mean. Do you have to work?" "Oh, no. The poorhouse is contiguous and hospitable. But I've always had a puerile prejudice against pauperdom as a career." "You know what I mean," she accused. "Haven't your people got money?" "Enough. And they can use what they have. Why should they waste it on me?" "But the men I know don't have to work," said the young lady. There was nothing patronizing or superior in her tone, but the curiosity with which she regarded her companion was in itself an irritant. "Oh, well," he said, "after you've bought an old historic house and maybe a coat of arms, I dare say you'll come to know some decent citizens by and by." "You mustn't think I have any feeling about your working," she explained magnanimously. "Lots of nice men do. I know that. Only I don't happen to know them. Young men, I mean. Of course dad works, but that's different. I suppose Mrs. Denyse told you who dad is." "She did. But I didn't know any more after she got through telling than before." The slanted brows went up to a high pitch of incredulity. "Where in the world do you live?" "Why, I've been in the West mostly for some years. My work has kept me there." "Oh, your haberdashery isn't in New York?" "My haber--er--well--no; that is, I don't depend on the--er--trade entirely. I'm a sort of a kind of a chemist, too." "In a college?" inquired the young lady, whose impressions of chemistry as a pursuit were derived chiefly from her schooldays. "Mainly in mining-camps. Far out of the world. That's why I don't know who you and your father are." "Don't you really? Well, never mind us. Tell me more about your work," she besought, setting the feminine pitfall--half unconsciously--into which trapper and prey so often walk hand in hand. He answered in the words duly made and provided for such occasions: "Not much to tell," and, as the natural sequence, proceeded to tell it, encouraged by her interested eyes, at no small length.