They shook hands at that and the crowd moved off further, though it increased as the circle expanded, and then Rimrock looked again at the tiger-skin. "Say, by George!" he exclaimed with unctuous admiration, "ain't that the finest tiger-skin you ever saw. And that's no circus product--that's a genuine _tigre_, the kind they have in Old Mexico!" "Oh, you have been in Mexico? Then that's how you knew it! I meet so many people who don't know. Yes, I have an interest in the famous Tigre Mine and this was given me by a gentleman there!" "Well, he must have been crazy over you!" declared Rimrock frankly, "or he'd never have parted with that skin!" "Ah, you flatter me!" she said and turned to the clerk with an inquiry regarding her room. "Give her the best there is!" spoke up Rimrock with authority, "and charge it up to the Company. No, now never you mind! Ain't you a friend of Buckbee's? And didn't you come out to see our mine?" "Oh, thank you very much," answered Mrs. Hardesty sweetly, "I prefer to pay, if you don't mind." "Your privilege," conceded Rimrock, "this is a fine, large, free country. We try to give 'em all what they want." "Yes, it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't the coloring wonderful! And have you spent all your life on these plains? Can't we sit down here somewhere? I'm just dying to talk with you. And I have business to talk over, too." "Oh, not here!" exclaimed Rimrock as she glanced about the lobby. "This may not be the Waldorf, but we've got some class all the same. Come up to the balcony--built especially for the ladies--say, how's friend Buckbee and the rest?" And then with the greatest gallantry in the world he escorted her to Mary's own balcony. There was another, across the well, but he did not even think of it. He had forgotten that Mary was in the world. As they sat in the dim alcove he found himself telling long stories and listening to the gossip of New York. Every word that he said was received with soft laughter, or rapt silence or a ready jest; and when she in her turn took the conversation in hand he found her sharing with him a new and unseen world. It was a woman's world, full of odd surprises. Everything she did seemed quite sweet and reasonable and at the same time daring and bizarre. She looked at things differently, with a sort of worldly-wise tolerance and an ever-changing, provocative smile. Nothing seemed to shock her even when, to try her, he moved closer; and yet she could understand.