"When did they fall away--the bits of rock, I mean?"
"It must have been about the time you--you were married, Mrs. Marten."
She tapped a satin-shod foot emphatically on the boarded floor. "Why are you calling me 'Mrs. Marten'?" she demanded.
"Don't do it again. I am 'Nancy' to you, Derry. I refuse to part with the privileges of friendship in that casual way. But I want to understand things more closely. What caused the stones to fall?"
"I don't mind telling," he said, "though a good many people have asked me the history of El Preço, and I have refused hitherto to gratify their curiosity----"
"El Preço--doesn't that mean 'the price'?"
"What an extraordinary name! The price of what?"
"Of my broken leg. There, you see! King Charles's head once more."
She paused, ever so briefly, before resuming her questioning. "Now, why did the stones fall?"
"Because an excited cowboy fired his revolver in the air, and the bullets struck a section of rock which required some such shock to dislodge it."
"I happened to be lying on the very ledge you spoke of, and--oh, dash it all! I secured my limp then and there."
"It may have disturbed a dozen rattlesnakes, for all that I can tell. But what an extraordinary thing to say! Did you know that a rattler lived in that cleft?"
"No. I was just thinking of the Gulch and its inhabitants. Perhaps my wits were wandering.... Come, Derry. Our half-hour is not gone, but we can talk on the way. Send a boy for my carriage. Do you want your hat and coat?"
She rose suddenly, and drew a light wrap of silvery tissue around her shoulders. Power stood up, and faced her. He had never seen her looking so ethereally beautiful, not even on the night, now so long ago, when he parted from her before taking that disastrous journey to Sacramento.
"Do you really think I ought to come with you to Mrs. Van Ralten's?" he said.
"You are my big brother from Bison, Derry, and I'm not going to forgo the pleasure of your company if all Newport lined the road and bawled, 'Send him away!' But do hurry. Mary Van Ralten will forgive everything except unpunctuality."
The nebulous protest on Power's lips faded into silence. "On such a night I can dispense with hat and overcoat," he said. "Your carriage is a closed landau, I suppose?"