"I have no telephone!" she answered evenly, "and if I did have I would not lend it to you. You're just like the rest of these men, I see; you think in terms of stocks. I should have done as Stoddard said, and paid you back for your rudeness. Do you know, Mr. Jones, that you think more of money than of anything else in the world? Are you aware of the fact that all the love and devotion that any poor woman might bestow would be wholly wasted, and worse than wasted, on a miserable stock-gambler like you! Ah, I was a fool!" she burst out, stamping her foot in a passion; and then she sank back on the divan and wept. Rimrock stood and gazed at her, then glanced absently at his watch and looked about, shamefaced, for a 'phone. But in that elegant apartment, with its rich furnishings and tapestries there was no place for a crude, commercial telephone, and the door to the inner room was closed. He turned towards the outer door, for his business was urgent, but she had carried off the key. He stirred uneasily, and a shrewd doubt assailed him for her weeping seemed all at once sophisticated and forced; and at the moment she raised her head. One look and she had cast herself upon him and twined her arms about his neck. "I can't help it! I can't help it!" she sobbed convulsively and drew down his head and kissed him. "I can't help it!" she whispered. "I love you, Rimrock; I can't bear to let you go!" She clung to him passionately and with tremulous laughter tugged to draw him back to the divan, but Rimrock stood upright and stubborn. Some strange influence, some memory, seemed to sweep into his brain and make him immune to her charm. It was the memory of a kiss, but not like her kisses; a kiss that was impulsive and shy. He pondered laboriously, while he took hold of her hands and slowly drew them away, and then his strong grip tightened. It was the kiss that Mary had given him in prison, when she had laid her cheek against the bars! That kiss had haunted him through the long months of waiting, and it rose in his memory now, when perhaps it were better forgotten. He put away the hands that still clung and petted and gazed fiercely into her eyes. And the woman faced him--without a tear on her cheek for all the false weeping she had done. "How's this?" he said and as she sensed his suspicion she jerked back in sudden defiance. "A stock-jobber!" she mocked. "All you think of is money. The love of a woman is nothing to you!" "Aw, cut out that talk!" commanded Rimrock brutally. "Some women are stock-jobbers, too. And speaking of stock, just give me a look at those two thousand shares of Tecolote." A sullen, sulky pout distorted her mouth and she made a face like a wilful girl. "You'd snatch them," she said, "and run away and leave me. And then what would I say to Stoddard?" "Are you working for him?" he asked directly and she threw out her arms in a pet.