“No, no; go away!” commanded Percival.

“Velly fine dragon coat.  Him all same b’long mandarin.  How much?”

Percival turned away, but at every step was presented with another garment for inspection.  Despite himself, his artistic eye was caught and held by the beauty of the fabrics.

“How much?” he asked, picking up a marvelous affair of silver and gray, lined with the faintest of shell pinks.  It was the exact tone and sheen to set Bobby’s beauty off to the greatest advantage.  The argument over the price was short and fierce, and Percival laid the coat beside the pendant on the table.

He promised himself to offset the effect of these gifts by a more detached and impersonal manner than he had shown Bobby during the day.  So far, he congratulated himself, he had given her no occasion for false hopes.  On the contrary, he had gone out of his way on several occasions to express his bitter disapproval of international marriages.  When the hour came for them to part, his heart might be mortally wounded, but his conscience, save for a few scratches, would be uninjured.

A quick step in the corridor made him look up.  Standing in the doorway was a vision of girlish beauty that had the acrobatic effect of sending his blood into his head and his heart into his eyes.  She wore the diaphanous gown of white that he liked best, her hair was coiled at the exact angle he had prescribed, and at her belt were the orchids he had sent up half an hour before.  No rhinestones in her hair, no gold beads on her slippers, nothing to mar the simplicity that her all too vivid beauty required.  Percival’s eyes appraised her at her full value.  Even Sister Cordelia would have been propitiated by the sight.

“What’s this lovely thing?” cried Bobby, pouncing upon the coat.

“Something I bought to be rid of a troublesome lad.  Don’t know what I shall do with it, exactly.”

“Take it to your sister, of course,”

“She probably has heaps of them.”

Bobby slipped her round, bare arms into the loose sleeves, and surveyed herself in the long mirror.

“Isn’t that the prettiest thing you ever saw?” she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.

[Illustration:  “Isn’t that the prettiest thing you ever saw?” she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder]

“It is,” said Percival, emphatically.  His judgment about the becomingness of the color had, us usual, been unerring.

“I should be no end grateful,” he said, “if you’d take it off my hands.  My trunks are fearfully stuffed now.”

“But I haven’t any money,” said Bobby, with characteristic frankness; “besides, we don’t need things like that in Cheyenne.”

“Silly girl!  Do you think I have turned merchant, and have got wares for sale?  The coat is for you.”

Bobby gave a cry of delight, then she looked up dubiously.

“But is it all right for me to take a present like this?  I never had anything so big given me—­yes, I did, too!” She laughed.  “A fellow from Medicine Bow sent me a barrel of mixed fruit once, with nuts and raisins in between, and ten pounds of candy on top!”