"Oh--oh, yes," stammered Denver suddenly reminded of his dereliction, "say, how did she happen to go? And I want to get her address so I can explain how it happened--I wouldn't have missed seeing her for anything!" "No, of course not," growled Bunker, "not for anything but your own interests. You can go to hell for your address." "Why, what do you mean?" demanded Denver; but as Bunker did not answer he fell back and let him go on. CHAPTER XXV THE ANSWER There are some kinds of questions which require no answers and others which answer themselves. Denver had asked Bunker what he meant when he refused Drusilla's address and intimated that he was unworthy of her friendship, but after a gloomy hour in the deepening twilight the question answered itself. Bunker had taken his daughter across the desert, on her way to the train and New York, and his curt remarks were but the reflex of her's as she discussed Denver's many transgressions. He thought more of mines and of his own selfish interests than he did of her and her art, and so she desired to hear no more of him or his protestations of innocence. That was what the words meant and as Denver thought them over he wondered if it was not true. Drusilla had greeted him cordially when he had returned from Globe and had invited him to dinner that same night, but he had refused because he needed the sleep and begrudged the daylight to take it. And the next day he had worked even harder than before and had forgotten her invitation entirely. She was to sing just for him and, after the singing, she would have told him all her plans; and then perhaps they might have spoken of other things and parted as lovers should. But no, he had spoiled it by his senseless hurry in getting his ore off with McGraw; and now, with all the time in the world on his hands, the valley below was silent. Not a scale, not a trill, not a run or roulade; only silence and the frogs with their devilish insistence, their ceaseless _eh_, _eh_, _eh_. He rose up and heaved a stone into the creek-bed below, then went in and turned on his phonograph. They were real people to him now, these great artists of the discs; Drusilla had described them as she listened to the records and even the places where they sang. She had pictured the mighty sweep of the Metropolitan with its horse-shoe of glittering boxes; the balconies above and the standing-room below where the poor art-students gathered to applaud; and he had said that when he was rich he would subscribe for a box and come there just to hear her sing. And now he was broke, and Drusilla was going East to run the perilous gauntlet of the tenors. He jerked up the stylus in the middle of a record and cursed his besotted industry. If he had let his ore go, and gone to see her like a gentleman, Drusilla might even now be his. She might have relented and given him a kiss--he cursed and stumbled blindly to bed.