“I hope so. I am well aware that you are enjoying yourself immensely.” Ora felt it quite safe to flirt with him in the open street. “Do you like me a little better?” “Rather. Friendly companionship is my chief idea of happiness, now that I am more or less tired of books.” “Is it? May it be my good fortune to initiate you into a higher! You have everything to learn!” “Have I? I wonder!” “What do you mean by that? Have you ever been in love?” “Not the least little bit!” “You said that rather too vehemently. It is my turn to wonder.” This time he looked hard at her and his face was grim. He had a way of setting his jaw that reminded her of the man whose haunting memory had made her alternately happy and miserable during many long months. She looked away hastily. “The kind of love you mean I have not the very least knowledge of. You must believe that.” “Of what other kind, then?” “Oh, all women dream, you know,” she said lightly. “They have a sort of ideal that consoles them for missing the realities of life. You come quite close to it,” and once more she sparkled her eyes at him. “I have no intention of letting you flirt with me,” said Valdobia calmly. “My flirting days are over. I shall remain the best of your friends until you love me or send me to the other end of the world.” “Well, don’t become serious and spoil everything.” “I shall not lose my head, if that is what you mean,” he said drily. “I find the present state of affairs very pleasant. Let us overtake the others and go for a drive.” XXXV “Well,” said Ora, when she and Ida had returned to the hotel to dress for dinner, “did you have a queer feeling when you were prowling through those dim old rooms, furnished three or four hundred years ago, and the scene of all sorts of romance and tragedy?” “I had a queer feeling all right. Had visions of rheumatism, sciatica, pneumonia, and a red nose for a week. I suppose those wonderful velvet gowns they wore--in pictures, anyhow--were padded inside, and they slept in them; didn’t take them off all winter. If I lived in one of those palaces today I’d surely lose all my good American habits.” “Didn’t you have any haunting sense of mystery--of having been there before?” “Nixie! No wonder I murdered if I ever was. However,” she added thoughtfully, “there’s no telling what I might have felt if they’d had a furnace in the house. There was something wonderful about it, all right--being in those musty old rooms, that fairly smelt of the past. I guess they’ll haunt me as some of those Roman palaces have that are not shown to the public. But don’t put weird ideas into my head, Ora. They don’t gee with Butte. The severely practical is my lay.” “Don’t you think there could be romance and tragedy in Butte?”