“I knew that you would hate me for what I had done because I had only proved that Landis was a brave youngster with enough nerve for nine out of ten.  And I came tonight—­to ask you to forgive me.  No, not that—­only to ask you to understand.  Do you?”

He raised his glance suddenly at that, and their eyes met with one of these electric shocks which will go tingling through two people.  And when the lips of Nelly Lebrun parted a little, he knew that she was in the trap.  He closed his hand that lay on the table—­curling the fingers slowly.  In that way he expressed all his exultation.

“There is something wrong,” said the girl, in a tone of one who argues with herself.  “It’s all too logical to be real.”

“Ah?”

“Was that your only reason for fighting Jack Landis?”

“Do I have to confess even that?”

She smiled in the triumph of her penetration, but it was a brief, unhappy smile.  One might have thought that she would have been glad to be deceived.

“I came to serve a girl who was unhappy,” said Donnegan.  “Her fiance had left her; her fiance was Jack Landis.  And she’s now in a hut up the hill waiting for him.  And I thought that if I ruined him in your eyes he’d go back to a girl who wouldn’t care so much about bravery.  Who’d forgive him for having left her.  But you see what a fool I was and how clumsily I worked?  My bluff failed, and I only wounded him, put him in your house, under your care, where he’ll be happiest, and where there’ll never be a chance for this girl to get him back.”

Nelly Lebrun, with her folded hands under her chin, studied him.

“Mr. Donnegan,” she said, “I wish I knew whether you are the most chivalrous, self-sacrificing of men, or simply the most gorgeous liar in the desert.”

“And it’s hardly fair,” said Donnegan, “to expect me to tell you that.”

28

It gave them both a welcome opportunity to laugh, welcome to the girl because it broke into an excitement which was rapidly telling upon her, and welcome to Donnegan because the strain of so many distortions of the truth was telling upon him as well.  They laughed together.  One hasty glance told Donnegan that half the couples in the room were whispering about Donnegan and Nelly Lebrun; but when he looked across the table he saw that Nelly Lebrun had not a thought for what might be going on in the minds of others.  She was quite content.

“And the girl?” she said.

Donnegan rested his forehead upon his hand in thought.  He dared not let Nelly see his face at this moment, for the mention of Lou Macon had poured the old flood of sorrow back upon him And therefore, when he looked up, he was sneering.

“You know these blond, pretty girls?” he said.

“Oh, they are adorable!”

“With dull eyes,” said Donnegan coldly, and a twinkle came into the responsive eye of Nelly Lebrun.  “The sort of a girl who sees a hero in such a fellow as Jack Landis.”