“Yes’m.  That’s why.  Let me tell you that I’ve searched this continent for a girl to fit my ideal.  That’s what it is, girl—­my ideal.  That bar of mine has got to be perfect.  It’s near to perfect now.  I want when that Englishman comes back to Millings to hear him say, ‘It’s perfect’ ... no ‘all but,’ you notice.  Why, miss, I could ‘a’ got a hundred ordin-ar-y girls, lookers too.  The world’s full of lookers.”

“Why didn’t you offer your—­’job’ to Babe or Girlie?”

Sylvester laughed.  “Well, girl, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“You did?” Sheila turned back and faced him.  There was plenty of color in her cheeks now.  Her narrow eyes were widely opened.  Astonishingly large and clear they were, when she so opened them.

“Yes’m.”  Sylvester glanced aside for an instant.

“And what did they say?”

“They balked,” Sylvester admitted calmly.  “They’re fine girls, Miss
Sheila.  And they’re lookers.  But they just aren’t quite fine enough. 
They’re not artists, like your Poppa and like you—­and like me.”

Sheila put a hand up to her cheek.  Her eyes came back to their accustomed narrowness and a look of doubt stole into her face.

“Artists?”

“Yes’m.”  Sylvester had begun to walk about.  “Artists.  Why, what’s an artist but a person with a dream he wants to make real?  My dream’s—­The Aura, girl.  For three years now”—­he half-shut his eyes and moved his arm in front of him as though he were putting in the broad first lines of a picture—­“I’ve seen that girl there back of my bar—­shining and good and fine—­not the sort of a girl a man’d be lookin’ for, mind you, just not that!  A girl that would sort of take your breath.  Say, picture it, Sheila!” He stood by her and pointed it out as though he showed her a view.  “You’re a cowboy.  And you come ridin’ in, bone-tired, dusty, with a thirst.  Well, sir, a thirst in your throat and a thirst in your heart and a thirst in your soul.  You’re wantin’ re-freshment.  For your body and your eyes and your mind.  Well, ma’am, you tie your pony up there and you push open those doors and you push ’em open and step plumb into Paradise.  It’s cool in there—­I’m picturin’ a July evenin’, Miss Sheila—­and it’s quiet and it’s shining clean.  And there’s a big man in white who’s servin’ drinks—­cold drinks with a grand smell.  That’s my man Carthy.  He keeps order.  You bet you, he does keep it too.  And beside him stands a girl.  Well, she’s the kind of girl you—­the cowboy—­would ‘a’ dreamed about, lyin’ out in your blanket under the stars, if you’d ‘a’ knowed enough to be able to dream about her.  After you’ve set eyes on her, you don’t dream about any other kind of girl.  And just seein’ her there so sweet and bright and dainty-like, makes a different fellow of you.  Say, goin’ into that bar is like goin’ into church and havin’ a jim-dandy time when you get there—­which is something the churches haven’t got round