He was running after her--he, Annixter! He ripped out a furious oath, striking the table with his boot heel.

Again and again he had resolved to put the whole affair from out his mind.

Once he had been able to do so, but of late it was becoming harder and harder with every successive day.

He had only to close his eyes to see her as plain as if she stood before him; he saw her in a glory of sunlight that set a fine tinted lustre of pale carnation and gold on the silken sheen of her white skin, her hair sparkled with it, her thick, strong neck, sloping to her shoulders with beautiful, full curves, seemed to radiate the light; her eyes, brown, wide, innocent in expression, disclosing the full disc of the pupil upon the slightest provocation, flashed in this sunlight like diamonds.
Annixter was all bewildered.

With the exception of the timid little creature in the glove-cleaning establishment in Sacramento, he had had no acquaintance with any woman.