But he brushed her hands roughly away.

“You want to know what it’s all about?  Then go over to—­well, to Milligan’s.  Donnegan will be there.  He’ll explain things to you, I guess.  He wants to see you.  And maybe I’ll come over later and join you.”

Seeing Lord Nick before her, so shaken, so gray of face, so dull of eye, she pictured Donnegan as a devil in human form, cunning, resistless.

“Nick, dear—­” she pleaded.

He closed the door in her face, and she heard his heavy step go back across the room.  In some mysterious manner she felt the Promethean fire had been stolen from Lord Nick, and Donnegan’s was the hand that had robbed him of it.

36

It was fear that Nelly Lebrun felt first of all.  It was fear because the impossible had happened and the immovable object had been at last moved.  Going back to her own room, the record of Lord Nick flashed across her mind; one long series of thrilling deeds.  He had been a great and widely known figure on the mountain desert while she herself was no more than a girl.  When she first met him she had been prepared for the sight of a firebreathing monster; and she had never quite recovered from the first thrill of finding him not devil but man.

Quite oddly, now that there seemed another man as powerful as Lord Nick or even more terrible, she felt for the big man more tenderly than ever; for like all women, there was a corner of her heart into which she wished to receive a thing she could cherish and protect.  Lord Nick, the invincible, had seemed without any real need of other human beings.  His love for her had seemed unreal because his need of her seemed a superficial thing.  Now that he was in sorrow and defeat she suddenly visualized a Lord Nick to whom she could truly be a helpmate.  Tears came to her eyes at the thought.

Yet, very contradictorily and very humanly, the moment she was in her room she began preparing her toilet for that evening at Lebrun’s.  Let no one think that she was already preparing to cast Lord Nick away and turn to the new star in the sky of the mountain desert.  By no means.  No doubt her own heart was not quite clear to Nelly.  Indeed, she put on her most lovely gown with a desire for revenge.  If Lord Nick had been humbled by this singular Donnegan, would it not be a perfect revenge to bring Donnegan himself to her feet?  Would it not be a joy to see him turn pale under her smile, and then, when he was well-nigh on his knees, spurn the love which he offered her?

She set her teeth and her eyes gleamed with the thought.  But nevertheless she went on lavishing care in the preparation for that night.

As she visioned the scene, the many curious eyes that watched her with Donnegan; the keen envy in the faces of the women; the cold watchfulness of the men, were what she pictured.

In a way she almost regretted that she was admired by such fighting men, Landis, Lord Nick, and now Donnegan, who frightened away the rank and file of other would-be admirers.  But it was a pang which she could readily control and subdue.