An hour later when Blue Jeans heard a man asking for Perry Blair in the Cactus House, he stepped up. He didn't care for his looks, which was no novelty so far in this venture. "I'm Perry Blair," he said. "I'm Devereau." And later, over a contract: "This mentions mighty little money," said Perry, "and that little bashful and meek." Perry's manner did not even approximate the respect which Devereau felt was his due. "You'll be well taken care of," he stated curtly. But Perry's answer, like one he had made the huge man, made Devereau pause and think. "No doubt at all," said he. "I'll be seeing to that myself." And they didn't know, not till a long time afterward, that they had met only a little while before. It had been dark at the platform's end. Perry had caught nothing save a canine grin. CHAPTER IV ALL ELSE IS HERESY There are certain people, good people to whom orthodox precepts and preachments are more than the constant evidence of their own eyes, who will find displeasure in this story. For they are accustomed to a formula in all such tales and are not likely to abide a departure from it. By it they have come to know immediately, whenever a woman with instincts of doubtful propriety is introduced early in the action, just what to expect. Her doom has struck. The frightful end which will be hers is only a deferred matter still in the hands of her historian: The dark river, a rushing car over an embankment to swift oblivion, a living agony of remorse,--the rewards it will be noted bear a distinct resemblance each to the other. For the wages of sin have long been classified, tabulated and fixed, a minimum of mercy, a maximum of disaster. All else is heresy. They have been told this so many times that they not only believe it, just as Cecille Manners once believed, utterly, fervidly, but they derive therefrom an ardent satisfaction. This might seem strange, but it is stranger far that they never look about them, just for a moment, at life itself--just for a moment, just long enough to wonder. But they do not. They believe in and expect the worst, demand it indeed. And so this story will not please them--no. Not at all in so far as it chronicles the life of Felicity Brown. But the other half, the half which has been wondering for quite a while, just as Cecille came to wonder, may read it and approve. [Illustration: He tore at them, mad with rage.]