"A man’s blood boils so easily—like a kettle on a mountain!" "Be fair, Cornelia. Some men’s blood does, yes. Men on Mazie’s own level. Burley’s one of them." "Well," said Cornelia, waiving the point, "what did Hutchins do, or rather undo?" "I’d better not go into details. He played several questionable pranks. Once, it looked as though he were on the point of seizing Mazie by her locks and dragging her, stone-man fashion, to his lair. Even Mazie had to act then, really to _act_, for she was after bigger game." "You mean, Claude?" "Yes. But Claude had no eyes for the woman of all time. His gaze was absolutely absorbed by a new star of the first magnitude, a star not charted in the heavens before." "And this starry wonder?" "Was Janet Barr." He tried to say the name casually, but Cornelia’s jealous ear detected a caressing tone. "Hard on Mazie, wasn’t it?" he pursued. "On Mazie least of all," she said pointedly. The shaft missed. "Yes, Burley got the worst end of it," he went on innocently. "I dare say Mazie consoled herself easily enough. But Burley’s aspirations have met more than one jolt to-night. When he made a dead set at Janet—that was another rebuff." Robert described the riotous scene outside the gypsy tent. "Then, as I’ve already told you, Mazie gave him the slip; with the result that I’ve never seen Burley more completely divested of his first-prize bumptiousness. However, he soon pulled himself together." "Goodness knows there must have been plenty of Outlaw girls ready to lay balm on the big scamp’s wounds." "Yes. And I needn’t remind you that many of these young ladies believe in free speech, free men and free love. Well, Hutchins made the rounds of those he knew and publicly challenged them to live up to their pretensions. His proposals were brutally frank." "The girls received them with amusement, I suppose?" "They received them with scornful resentment—just like ordinary conventional creatures. That was what was so surprising. For Hutchins was simply a man who took their professed opinions at face value. ’Darling,’ he would say bluntly, to one of his pets, ’Darling, I like you and your ruby lips. If you like me and are not otherwise engaged, suppose we go off to Paradise.’ It was raw, of course. But you can’t say it wasn’t what is called ’free love’." "Really, Rob!" "Exactly. They were every bit as scandalized as you are. After gasping for breath, they called for their escorts. Whereupon I concluded that instinct is mightier than opinion and that the beliefs we inherit are vastly stronger than the beliefs we acquire." Cornelia ignored this piece of satire. And Robert then told how Burley had resumed his pursuit of Janet. "Luckily, Claude held him off," he said. "Another champion! Little Janet must be quite the belle of the ball."