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diff --git a/26550.txt b/26550.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..263ae87 --- /dev/null +++ b/26550.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6190 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Children of the Desert, by Louis Dodge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Children of the Desert + +Author: Louis Dodge + +Release Date: September 7, 2008 [EBook #26550] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE DESERT *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +CHILDREN OF THE DESERT + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +BONNIE MAY. Illustrated by Reginald Birch. + 12mo . . . . . . . . . . . . . net $1.35 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +CHILDREN OF THE DESERT + +BY +LOUIS DODGE + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1917 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Copyright, 1917, by +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Published March, 1917 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TO +THE FRIENDS OF EAGLE PASS AND +PIEDRAS NEGRAS--IN THE +GOOD OLD DAYS + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +CONTENTS + +PART PAGE + I. Harboro and Sylvia 1 + II. The Time Of Flame 65 +III. Fectnor, The People's Advocate 99 + IV. The Horse With The Golden Dapples 177 + V. A Wind From The North 211 + VI. The Guest-chamber 243 +VII. Sylvia 273 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART I + +HARBORO AND SYLVIA + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHILDREN OF THE DESERT + +CHAPTER I + + +They were married in the little Episcopal church in Eagle Pass on a +September day in the late eighties. The fact may be verified, I have no +doubt, by any who will take the trouble to examine the records, for the +toy-like place of worship still stands. + +The church structure is not, perhaps, so small as my imagination presents +it to me; but I cannot see it save with the desert as a background--the +desert austere and illimitable. You reach the prim little front door by +climbing a street which runs parallel with the Rio Grande, and the church +is almost the last structure you will pass before you set forth into a +No-Man's land of sage and cactus and yucca and mesquite lying under the +blazing sun. + +Harboro his name was. Of course, there was a Christian name, but he was +known simply as Harboro from Piedras Negras to the City. She was Sylvia +Little. Sylvia, people called her, both before and after her marriage. The +Little might as well never have belonged to her. + +Although neither Harboro nor Sylvia really belonged to Eagle Pass, the +wedding was an event. Both had become familiar figures in the life of the +town and were pretty well known. Their wedding drew a large and interested +audience. (I think the theatrical phrase is justified, as perhaps will be +seen.) Weddings were not common in the little border town, unless you +counted the mating of young Mexicans, who were always made one by the +priest in the _adobe_ church closer to the river. Entertainment of any +kind was scarce. But there were other and more significant reasons why +people wanted to see the bride and the bridegroom, when Harboro gave his +name to the woman of his choice. + +The young people belonging to some sort of church guild had decorated the +church, and special music had been prepared. And indeed when Harboro and +Sylvia marched up the aisle to the strains of the _Lohengrin_ march (the +bridegroom characteristically trying to keep step, and Sylvia ignoring the +music entirely), it was not much to be wondered at that people craned +their necks to get the best possible view. For both Harboro and the woman +were in a way extraordinary individuals. + +Harboro was forty, and seemed in certain aspects older than that. He was a +big man, well built, and handsome after a fashion. He was swarthy, with +dark eyes which seemed to meditate, if not to dream. His hair was +raven-black, and he wore a heavy mustache which stopped just short of +being unduly conspicuous. It was said of him that he talked little, but +that he listened keenly. By trade he was a railroad man. + +He had been heard to remark on one occasion that he had begun as a +brakeman, but there were rumors of adventurous days before he became a +member of a train crew. It was said that he had gone prospecting into +Mexico as a youth, and that he had spent years working at ends and odds of +jobs about mines and smelters. Probably he had hoped to get into something +in a big way. + +However, he had finally turned to railroading, and in the course of +uncertain events had become an engineer. It was a year or two after he had +attained this position that he had been required to haul a special train +from Torreon to Piedras Negras. The General Manager of the Mexican +International Railroad was on that train, and he took occasion to talk to +the engineer. The result pleased him mightily. In his engine clothes +Harboro looked every inch a man. There was something clean and level about +his personality which couldn't have been hid under a _sarape_. He stood +shoulder to shoulder with the General Manager, making the latter look like +a manikin, and talked about his work and the condition of the road and the +rolling stock. He talked easily and listened intelligently. He was grave +in an easy fashion. He took no liberties, cracked no jokes. + +The General Manager got the idea that the big fellow would be a good man +to stand shoulder to shoulder with in larger events than a special trip. + +When he got back to headquarters he made a casual inquiry or two, and +discovered that Harboro wrote an exceptionally good hand, and that he +spelled correctly. He assumed that he was an educated man--though this +impression may have been largely due to the fact that Harboro was keenly +interested in a great variety of things, and had a good memory. + +The General Manager waited for certain wheels to turn, and then he sent +for Harboro and offered him a position as chief clerk in one of the +headquarter departments. + +Harboro accepted the position, and said "Thank you," and proved to be +uncommonly competent. + +The people of Piedras Negras took a liking to him; the women wanted to get +acquainted with him. He was invited to places, and he accepted the +invitations without either belittling or magnifying their importance. He +got on rather well from the beginning. + +The social affairs of Piedras Negras were sometimes on a fairly large +scale. The General Manager had his winter residence there--a meticulously +cultivated demain which lay like a blue spot in a cloudy sky. There were +grass and palms and, immediately beyond, the vast desert. At night (on +occasion) there were Chinese lanterns to add their cheerful note to pretty +revelries, while the stars lay low and big over all the desert expanse. +The General Manager's wife had prominent social affiliations, and she used +to bring winter guests from the north and east--from Chicago and New York +and Boston. There were balls and musicales, and a fine place for +conversation out on the lawn, with Mexican servants to bring cigars and +punch, and with Mexican fiddlers to play the national airs under a +fig-covered band-stand. + +The young people from Eagle Pass used to go over when the General +Manager's wife was giving one of her less formal affairs. They were rather +refreshing types: the Texas type, with a good deal of freedom of action +and speech, once they were drawn out, and with plenty of vigor. On these +occasions Eagle Pass merged itself into the Mexican town, and went home +late at night over the Rio Grande bridge, and regarded life as a romance. + +These affairs and this variety of people interested Harboro. He was not to +be drawn out, people soon discovered; but he liked to sit on the lawn and +listen and take observations. He was not backward, but his tastes were +simple. He was seemingly quite as much at ease in the presence of a +Chicago poetess with a practised--a somewhat too practised--laugh or a +fellow employee risen, like himself, to a point where society could see +him. + +In due course Eagle Pass gave an entertainment (at the Mesquite Club) and +invited certain railroad officials and employees from the other side of +the river. Harboro was included among those invited, and he put on correct +evening dress, and rode over in a coach, and became a favorite in Eagle +Pass. He seemed rather big and serious for complete assimilation, but he +looked well with the club settings as a background, and his name appeared +later in the week in the Eagle Pass _Guide_, in the list headed "among +those present." + +All of which he accepted without agitation, or without ceasing to be +Harboro himself all over. + +He did not meet Sylvia Little at the Mesquite Club. If you had known +Sylvia and the Mesquite Club, you would laugh at so superfluous a +statement. Eagle Pass was pleasantly democratic, socially, but it could +not have been expected to stand for Sylvia. + +People didn't know much about her (to her credit, at least) except that +she was pretty. She was wonderfully pretty, and in a way which was all the +more arresting when you came to consider her desert surroundings. + +She had come, with her father, from San Antonio. They had taken a low, +homely little house, standing under its mesquite-tree, close to the +government reservation, where the flagstaff stood, and the cannon boomed +at sundown, and the soldiers walked their posts. Back of the house there +was a thicket of mesquites, and through this a path ran down to the +river. + +The first thing people mistrusted about Sylvia was her father. He had no +visible means of support; and if his manner was amiable, his ways were +furtive. He had a bias in favor of Mexican associates, and much of his +time was spent down under the river bank, where a few small wine-shops and +gambling establishments still existed in those days. There were also +rumors of drinking and gambling orgies in the house under the +mesquite-tree, and people said that many strange customers traversed that +path through the mesquite, and entered Little's back door. They were +soldiers and railroad men, and others of a type whose account in the bank +of society nobody ever undertakes to balance. Sylvia was thought to be the +torch which attracted them, and it was agreed that Sylvia's father knew +how to persuade them to drink copiously of beverages which they paid for +themselves, and to manipulate the cards to his own advantage in the games +which were introduced after a sufficient number of drinks had been +served. + +Possibly a good deal of this was rumor rather than fact: an uncharitable +interpretation of pleasures which were inelegant, certainly, but possibly +not quite vicious. Still, it seemed to be pretty well established that up +to the time of Sylvia's marriage her father never worked, and that he +always had money--and this condition, on any frontier, is always regarded +with mistrust. + +Sylvia's prettiness was of a kind to make your heart bleed, everything +considered. She was of a wistful type, with eager blue eyes, and lips +which were habitually parted slightly--lips of a delicate fulness and +color. Her hair was soft and brown, and her cheeks were of a faint, pearly +rosiness. You would never have thought of her as what people of strictly +categorical minds would call a bad woman. I think a wholly normal man must +have looked upon her as a child looks at a heather-bell--gladly and +gratefully, and with a pleased amazement. She was small and slight. Women +of the majordomo type must have regarded her as still a child. Her breasts +were little, her neck and shoulders delicate, and she had a trick of +lifting her left hand to her heart when she was startled or regarded too +shrewdly, as if she had some prescient consciousness of coming evil. + +She was standing by her front gate when Harboro first saw her--and when +she first saw Harboro. The front gate commanded an unobstructed view of +the desert. It was near sundown, and far across the earth's floor, which +looked somewhat like a wonderful mosaic of opals and jade at this hour, a +Mexican goatherd was driving his flock. That was the only sign of life to +be seen or felt, if you except the noise of locusts in the mesquite near +by and the spasmodic progress of a horned toad in the sand outside +Sylvia's gate. + +Yet she was looking away to the vibrating horizon, still as hot as an +oven, as yearningly as if at any moment a knight might ride over the rim +of the desert to rescue her, or as if a brother were coming to put an end +to the existence of a Bluebeard who, obviously, did not exist. + +And then Harboro appeared--not in the distance, but close at hand. He was +passing Sylvia's gate. He had a natural taste for geology, it seemed, and +he had chosen this hour to walk out beyond Eagle Pass to examine the rock +formations which had been cast up to the surface of the desert by +prehistoric cataclysms. + +He was close enough to Sylvia to touch her when her presence broke down +his abstraction and drew his eyes away from whatever object they had been +observing away on the horizon. + +He stopped as if he had been startled. That was a natural result of +Sylvia's appearance here in this withered place. She was so delicately, +fragilely abloom. Her setting should have been some region south of the +Caucasus. Her period should have been during the foundations of mythology. +She would have made you think of Eve. + +And because her hand went to her heart, and her lips parted tremulously, +Harboro stopped. It was as if he felt he must make amends. Yet his words +were the inevitable banalities. + +"You have a fine view here," he said. + +"A fine view!" she echoed, a little incredulously. It was plain that she +did not agree with him. "There is plenty of sun and air," she conceded +after a pause. + +He rested a heavy hand on the fence. When Harboro stopped you never had +the feeling that some of his interests had gone on ahead and were +beckoning to him. He was always all there, as if permanently. + +He regarded her intently. Her voice had something of the quality of the +_Traeumerei_ in it, and it had affected him like a violin's _vibrato_, +accompanying a death scene--or as a litany might have done, had he been a +religious man. + +"I suppose you find it too much the same, one day after another," he +suggested, in response to that mournful quality in her voice. "You live +here, then?" + +She was looking across the desert. Where had the goatherd hidden himself? +She nodded without bringing her glance to meet Harboro's. + +"I know a good many of the Eagle Pass people. I've never seen you +before." + +"I thought you must be a stranger," she replied. She brought her glance to +his face now and seemed to explore it affectionately, as one does a new +book by a favorite author. "I've never seen you before, either." + +"I've been to several entertainments at the Mesquite Club." + +"Oh! ... the Mesquite Club. I've never been there." + +He looked at her in his steadfast fashion for a moment, and then changed +the subject. "You have rather more than your share of shade here. I had no +idea there was such a pretty place in Eagle Pass." He glanced at the old +mesquite-tree in the yard. It was really quite a tree. + +"Yes," she assented. She added, somewhat falteringly: "But it seems +dreadfully lonesome sometimes." + +(I do not forget that path which led from Sylvia's back door down to the +Rio Grande, nor the men who traversed it; yet I believe that she spoke +from her heart, and that her words were essentially true.) + +"Perhaps you're not altogether at home in Eagle Pass: I mean, this isn't +really your home?" + +"No. We came from San Antonio a year ago, my father and I." + +His glance wandered up the brick walk to the cottage door, but if Sylvia +perceived this and knew it for a hint, she did not respond. + +Harboro thought of other possibilities. He turned toward the desert. +"There, the sun's dipping down beyond that red ridge," he said. "It will +be cooler now. Won't you walk with me?--I'm not going far." + +She smiled happily. "I'd like to," she admitted. + +And so Sylvia and Harboro walked together out toward the desert. It was, +in fact, the beginning of a series of walks, all taken quite as informally +and at about the same hour each day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Some of the cruder minds of Eagle Pass made a sorry jest over the fact +that nobody "gave the bride away" when she went to the altar--either then +or during the brief period of courtship. Her father went to the wedding, +of course; but he was not the kind of person you would expect to +participate conspicuously in a ceremony of that sort. He was so decidedly +of the black-sheep type that the people who assumed management of the +affair considered it only fair to Sylvia (and to Harboro) to keep him in +the background. Sylvia had never permitted Harboro to come to the house to +see her. She had drawn a somewhat imaginary figure in lieu of a father to +present to Harboro's mind's eye. Her father (she said) was not very well +and was inclined to be disagreeable. He did not like the idea of his +daughter getting married. She was all he had, and he was fearfully +lonesome at times. + +Harboro had accepted all this readily. He had asked no questions. + +And so Little went to the wedding. He went early so that he could get a +seat over against the wall, where he wouldn't be too conspicuous. He +looked decidedly like an outsider, and, as a matter of fact, a good many +people did not recognize him as Sylvia's father. He was probably regarded +as a stranger who had drifted into the church to enjoy the familiar yet +interesting spectacle of a man and a maid bound together by a rite which +was the more interesting because it seemed so ephemeral, yet meant so +much. + +Several of the young women of Eagle Pass had aided Sylvia in getting ready +to meet her husband-to-be at the altar. They were well-known girls, acting +with the aid (and in the company) of their mothers. They did not admit +even to one another what it was that separated Sylvia from their world. +Perhaps they did not fully understand. They did know that Sylvia was not +one of them; but they felt sorry for her, and they enjoyed the experience +of arraying her as a bride and of constituting, for the moment, a pretty +and irreproachable setting for her wistful person. They were somewhat +excited, too. They had the feeling that they were helping to set a +mouse-trap to catch a lion--or something like that. + +And after the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Harboro emerged from the church into +the clear night, under the stars, and went afoot in the direction of their +new home--an attractive structure which Harboro had had erected on what +was called the Quemado Road. + +A good many of the guests looked after them, and then at each other, but +of definite comment there was mighty little. + +Sylvia's father went back to his house alone. He was not seen in the +Maverick Bar that night, nor for quite a number of succeeding nights. He +had never had any experiences in Eagle Pass which proved him to be a +courageous man--or to lack courage; but in all probability a sensation +akin to fear bothered him more or less during those first days and nights +after his daughter had got married. + +Perhaps it would have been better for Sylvia if he had brazened it out +just at that time, for on the very night of the wedding there was talk in +the Maverick Bar. Not open or general comment, certainly. The border folk +were not loose of speech. But two young fellows whose social versatility +included membership in the Mesquite Club, on the one side, and a free and +easy acquaintance with habitues of the Maverick Bar on the other, sat over +against the wall behind a card-table and spoke in lowered tones. They +pretended to be interested in the usual movements of the place. Two or +three cowboys from Thompson's ranch were "spending" and pressing their +hospitality upon all and sundry. A group of soldiers from the post were +present, and Jesus Mendoza, a Mexican who had accumulated a competency by +corralling his inebriated fellow countrymen at election times, and knowing +far more about the ticket they voted than they could ever have learned, +was resting a spurred boot on the bar railing, and looking through dreamy +eyes and his own cloud of cigarette smoke at the front door. Mendoza +always created the impression of being interested in something that was +about to happen, or somebody who was about to appear--but never in his +immediate surroundings. + +"It's too bad somebody couldn't have told him," Blanchard, of the Eagle +Pass bank, was saying to the other man behind the card-table. The +conversation had begun by each asking the other why he wasn't up at the +wedding. + +"Yes," assented Dunwoodie, the other man. He was a young lawyer whose +father had recently died in Belfast, leaving him money enough to quench a +thirst which always flourished, but which never resulted in even partial +disqualification, either for business or pleasure. "Yes, but Harboro +is.... Say, Blanchard, did you ever know another chap like Harboro?" + +"I can't say I know him very well." + +"Of course--that's it. Nobody does. He won't let you." + +"I don't see that, quite. I have an idea there just isn't much to know. +His size and good looks mislead you. He doesn't say much, probably because +he hasn't much to say. I've never thought of there being any mystery. His +behavior in this affair proves that there isn't much of the right kind of +stuff in him. He's had every chance. The railroad people pushed him right +along into a good thing, and the women across the river--the best of +them--were nice to him. I have an idea the--er--new Mrs. Harboro will +recall some of us to a realization of a truth which we're rather proud of +ignoring, down here on the river: I mean, that we've no business asking +people about their antecedents." + +Dunwoodie shook his head. "I figure it out differently. I think he's +really a big chap. He won all the fellows over in the railroad +offices--and he was pushed over the heads of some of them when he was +given that chief clerkship. And then the way he's got of standing up to +the General Manager and the other magnates. And you'll notice that if you +ever ask him a question he'll give you an answer that sets you to +thinking. He seems to work things out for himself. His mind doesn't just +run along the channel of traditions. I like him all the better because +he's not given to small talk. If there was anything worth while to talk +about, I'll bet you'd always find him saying something worth while." + +"You're right about his not being strong about traditions. There's the +matter of his marriage. Maybe he knows all about Sylvia--and doesn't care. +He _must_ know about her." + +"Don't make a mistake on that score. I've seen them together. He reveres +her. You can imagine his wanting to spread a cloak for her at every +step--as if she were too pure to come into contact with the earth." + +"But good God, man! There's a path to her back door, worn there by fellows +who would tremble like a colt in the presence of a lady." + +Dunwoodie frowned whimsically. "Don't say a path. It must be just a +trail--a more or less indistinct trail." + +Blanchard looked almost excited. "It's a _path_, I tell you!" + +And then both men laughed suddenly--though in Dunwoodie's laughter there +was a note of deprecation and regret. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +And so Harboro and Sylvia went home to the house on the Quemado Road +without knowing that the town had washed its hands of them. + +Harboro had made certain arrangements which were characteristic of him, +perhaps, and which nobody knew anything about. For example, he had +employed the most presentable Mexican woman he could find, to make the +house homelike. He had taken a little sheaf of corn-husks away from her so +that she could not make any cigarettes for a day or two, and he had read +her a patient lecture upon ways and means of making a lot of furniture +look as if it had some direct relationship with human needs and pleasures. +And he had advised and aided her in the preparation of a wedding supper +for two. He had ordered grapes from Parras, and figs--black figs, a little +withered, and candied _tunas._ And there was a roast of beef with herbs +and chili sauce, and _enchalades._ + +The electric lights were turned on up-stairs and down when they entered +the house, and Sylvia had an alarmed moment when she pictured a lot of +guests waiting for them. But there proved to be nobody in the house but +just they two and the old Mexican woman. Antonia, her name was. + +Harboro took her by the hand and led her up-stairs to the door of her +room. It didn't occur to him that Antonia might better have attended to +this part of the welcoming. Antonia was busy, and she was not the sort of +person to mother a bride, Harboro thought. She wouldn't have been asked to +perform this task in any case. You would have thought that Harboro was +dealing with a child rather than a woman--his wife. It seemed the most +natural thing in the world for him to take complete charge of her from the +beginning. + +She uttered a little cry when she entered the bedroom. There by the bed +was her trunk, which she had left at home. She hadn't known anything about +its having been transferred from one house to the other. + +"Who brought it?" she asked, startled. + +"I sent for it," explained Harboro. "I knew you'd want it the first +thing." + +"You didn't go to the house?" + +"Oh, no. I sent the expressman to the house and instructed him to ask for +your things. I suppose he met your father. It's all right." + +She looked at him curiously. There was a little furrow in her forehead. +"Do you always do things--that way?" she asked. + +He didn't appear to understand what she meant. He had other things on his +mind. He stood away from her, by the door. "If I were you I'd take off +that--harness," he said. "It makes you look like a picture--or a +sacrifice. Do you know the old Aztec legends? It would be nicer for you to +look just like a little woman now. Put on one of the dresses you wore when +we walked together. How does that strike you?" + +"Well, I will." She looked after him as if she were a little bewildered as +he turned away, and closed the door. She heard him call back: "I'll see if +there's anything I can do for Antonia. Supper will be ready when you come +down." + +It seemed to her that his conduct was very strange for a lover. He was so +entirely matter-of-fact. Yet everything about him seemed to be made up of +kindness--to radiate comfort. She had never known any other man like this, +she reflected. And then an unfamiliar light dawned upon her. She had had +lovers before, certainly; but she realized now, with a deep and strange +sensation, that she had never really been loved until Harboro came. + +She had some difficulty in getting out of her wedding-finery. There was a +momentary temptation to call for help. But she thought better of this, and +in the end she came down-stairs like a girl, in a light, clinging dress of +Chinese silk, with a girdle and tassel at the waist, and a red ribbon +woven into the throat. You might have thought she was seventeen or +eighteen. As a matter of fact, she was only twenty-two. + +Harboro met her and kissed her, and led her to the table. He had a +forceful manner. He was hungry, and it seemed that his efficiency extended +to a knowledge of how a dinner should be served. + +He took his seat at the end of the table where the roast was, and the +carving implements. At Sylvia's place there was a percolator, and the +coffee-cups, and the sugar and cream. + +Antonia, wizened and dark, came and went silently. To the people of her +race a wedding means a _fiesta_, a village hubbub, a dance, and varying +degrees of drunkenness. She was not herself in this house of a wedding +supper for two, and a prosaic attitude toward the one event in life when +money ought to be spent freely, even in the face of impending bankruptcy. + +But Harboro speedily set her at ease. They were there to eat their +supper--that was all there was to it. He wasn't drinking toasts, or making +love. He seemed thoroughly contented; and it didn't occur to him, clearly, +that there was any occasion for making a noise or simulating an excitement +which he did not feel. + +Antonia regarded him furtively, from over his shoulder, as she waited for +Sylvia's plate with its portion of the roast. He was a strange _hombre._ +Well, she had known big, quiet men before. They were like rocks. It was +all very well for a woman if she stood behind such a man for protection as +long as she remained quiet; but Heaven help her if she ever undertook to +beat him with her fists. She would only break her hands and accomplish +nothing else whatever. + +Sylvia was not in a mood, seemingly, to eat very heartily; but Harboro +thought he understood that, and he made allowances. He did not urge her, +unless reassuring tones and comfortable topics may be said to consist of +urging. + +He regarded her with bright eyes when she poured the coffee; and when her +hands trembled he busied himself with trifles so that he would not seem to +notice. He produced a cigar and cut the end off with his penknife, and lit +it deliberately. + +Only once--just before they got up from the table--did he assume the role +of lover. He turned to Antonia, and with an air of pride and contentment, +asked the old woman, in her own language: + +"Isn't she a beautiful child?" + +Sylvia was startled by his manner of speaking Spanish. Everybody along the +border spoke the language a little; but Harboro's wasn't the canteen +Spanish of most border Americans. Accent and enunciation were singularly +nice and distinct. His mustache bristled rather fiercely over one or two +of the words. + +Antonia thought very highly of the "child," she admitted. She was +_bonisima_, and other superlatives. + +And then Harboro's manner became rather brisk again. "Come, I want to show +you the house," he said, addressing his wife. + +He had taken a great deal of pride in the planning and construction of the +house. There was a young Englishman in one of the shops--a draftsman--who +had studied architecture in a London office, and who might have been a +successful architect but for a downfall which had converted him, +overnight, into a remittance-man and a fairly competent employee of the +Mexican International. And this man and Harboro had put their heads +together and considered the local needs and difficulties, and had finally +planned a house which would withstand northers and lesser sand-storms, and +the long afternoons' blazing sun, to the best advantage. A little garden +had been planned, too. There was hydrant water in the yard. And there was +a balcony, looking to the west, over the garden. + +She preceded him up-stairs. + +"First I want to show you your own room," said Harboro. "What do you call +it? I mean the room in which the lady of the house sits and is +contented." + +I can't imagine what there was in this description which gave Sylvia a +hint as to his meaning, but she said: + +"A boudoir?" + +And Harboro answered promptly: "That's it!" + +The boudoir was at the front of the house, up-stairs, overlooking the +Quemado Road. It made Sylvia's eyes glisten. It contained a piano, and a +rather tiny divan in russet leather, and maple-wood furniture, and +electric fixtures which made you think of little mediaeval lanterns. But +the bride looked at these things somewhat as if she were inspecting a +picture, painted in bold strokes: as if they would become obscure if she +went too close--as if they couldn't possibly be hers to be at home among. + +It did not appear that Harboro was beginning to feel the absence of a +spontaneous acceptance on the part of his wife. Perhaps he was rather full +of his own pleasure just then. + +They closed the door of the boudoir behind them after they had completed +their inspection, and at another door Harboro paused impressively. + +"This," he said, pushing the door open wide, "is the guest-chamber." + +It would have been small wonder if Sylvia had felt suddenly cold as she +crossed that threshold. Certainly she seemed a little strange as she stood +with her back to Harboro and aimlessly took in the capacious bed and the +few other simple articles. + +"The guest-chamber?" she echoed presently, turning toward him. + +"We'll have guests occasionally--after a while. Friends of yours from San +Antonio, perhaps, or fellows I've known all the way from here to the City. +We shouldn't want them to go to a hotel, should we? I mean, if they were +people we really cared for?" + +"I hadn't thought," she answered. + +She went to the window and looked out; but the gray sands, pallid under +the night sky, did not afford a soothing picture. She turned to Harboro +almost as if she were a stranger to him. "Have you many friends?" she +asked. + +"Oh, no!--not enough to get in my way, you know. I've never had much of a +chance for friendships--not for a good many years. But I ought to have a +better chance now. I've thought you'd be able to help me in that way." + +She did not linger in the room, and Harboro got the idea that she did not +like to think of their sharing their home with outsiders. He understood +that, too. "Of course we're going to be by ourselves for a long time to +come. There shall not be any guests until you feel you'd like to have +them." Then, as her eyes still harbored a shadow, he exclaimed gaily: +"We'll pretend that we haven't any guest-chamber at all!" And taking a +bunch of keys from his pocket he locked the door with a decisive +movement. + +On the way down the hall they passed their bedroom. "This room you've +seen," he said, "our room. But you have not seen the balcony yet." + +He was plainly confident that the balcony would make a pleasant impression +upon her. He opened yet another door, and they stepped out under the night +sky. + +The thing had been planned with certain poetic or romantic values in mind. +Standing on the balcony you were looking toward the Rio Grande--and +Mexico. And you seemed pretty high. There was the dull silver of the +river, and the line of lights along the bridge, and beyond the huddled, +dark structures of Piedras Negras. You might have imagined yourself on the +deck of a Mediterranean steamer, looking at a town in Algeria or Tunis. +And beyond, under the low-hanging stars, was the Mexican desert--a blank +page, with only here and there the obscurity of a garden, or a _hacienda_, +or a mere speck which would be a lonely casa built of earth. + +"Do you like it?" he asked. He had seated himself with a sigh of +contentment. His outstretched arms lay along the back of the settee, and +he was looking at her eagerly. + +Yes, she said, it was nice.... "It is strange that he should be thinking +of the view just now," she was saying to herself. A painful turmoil raged +within her; but outwardly she was so calm that Harboro was puzzled. To +him, too, that view became a negative thing for the moment. "I suspect +that house down under the mesquite-tree was a bit shabby," he was +thinking. "She's oppressed by so many new things." He gave her time to +find her bearings. That was a thing she would do better by being left +alone. + +And out of the chaos in Sylvia's mind there came the clear realization +that Harboro was not living for the moment, but that he was looking +forward, planning for a lifetime, and not for a swift, passing storm of +passion. There was something static in his nature; there was a stability +in the house he had provided and furnished. Her experiences with him were +not to be like a flame: sanctioned, yet in all other respects like other +experiences she had had in the past. + +The silence between them had become uncomfortable--inappropriate; and +Harboro put a gentle arm about her and drew her closer to him. "Sit down +by me," he said. + +He was dismayed by the result of that persuasive movement. The hand he had +taken into his trembled, and she would not yield to the pressure of his +arm. She hung her head as if desolate memories were crowding between him +and her, and he saw that moisture glistened in her eyes. + +"Eh?" he inquired huskily, "you're not afraid of me?" + +She allowed him to draw her closer, and he felt the negative movement of +her head as it lay on his shoulder; but he knew that she _was_ afraid, +though he did not gauge the quality of her fear. "You mustn't be afraid, +you know." He continued the pressure of his arm until she seemed to relax +wholly against him. He felt a delicious sense of conquest over her by +sympathy and gentleness. He was eager for that moment to pass, though he +held it precious and knew that it would never return again. Then he felt +her body tremble as it lay against his. + +"That won't do!" he chided gently. "Look!" He stood her on her feet before +him, and took her arms at the elbows, pinioning them carefully to her +sides. Then he slowly lifted her above him, so that he had to raise his +face to look into hers. The act was performed as if it were a rite. + +"You mean ... I am helpless?" She checked the manifestation of grief as +abruptly as a child does when its mind has been swiftly diverted. + +"God bless me, no! I mean anything but that. That's just what I _don't_ +mean. I mean that you're to have all the help you want--that you're to +look to me for your strength, that you are to put your burdens on me." He +placed her on the seat beside him and took one of her hands in both his. +"There, now, we'll talk. You see, we're one, you and I. That isn't just a +saying of the preachers. It's a fact. I couldn't harm you without harming +myself. Don't you see that? Nobody could harm you without harming me, +too." + +He did not notice that her hand stiffened in his at those words. + +"When we've been together awhile we'll both realize in wonderful ways what +it means really to be united. When you've laid your head on my shoulder a +great many times, or against my heart, the very blood in my veins will be +the blood in your veins. I can't explain it. It goes beyond physiology. +We'll belong to each other so completely that wherever you go I shall be +with you, and when I go to work I shall have only to put my hand on my +breast to touch you. I'll get my strength from you, and it shall be yours +again in return. There, those are things which will come to us little by +little. But you must never be afraid." + +I would rather not even try to surmise what was in Sylvia's mind when, +following those words of his, she swiftly took his face in her hands with +unsuspected strength and hungrily kissed him. But Harboro read no dark +meaning into the caress. It seemed to him the natural thing for her to +do. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Harboro adopted the plan, immediately after his marriage, of walking to +his work in the morning and back to his home in the evening. It was only a +matter of a mile or so, and if you kept out of the sun of midday, it was a +pleasant enough form of exercise. Indeed, in the morning it was the sort +of thing a man of varied experiences might have been expected to enjoy: +the walk through Eagle Pass, with a glimpse of the Dolch hotel bus going +to meet the early train from Spofford Junction, and a friendly greeting +from an occasional merchant, and then the breezy passage across the Rio +Grande bridge, spanning the meandering waters which never bore vessels of +any sort to the far-off sea, and finally the negotiation of the narrow +street in Piedras Negras, past the plaza and the bull-ring, and countless +little wine-shops, and the market, with its attractively displayed fruits +and vegetables from nobody knew where. + +But it is not to be denied that his practice of making this journey to and +fro afoot was not without its prejudicial result. The people of quality of +either side of the river rarely ever set foot on the bridge, or on those +malodorous streets of Piedras Negras which lay near the river. Such people +employed a _cochero_ and drove, quite in the European style, when business +or pleasure drew them from their homes. There was an almost continuous +stream of _peones_ on the bridge in the mornings and evenings: silent, +furtive people, watched closely by the customs guard, whose duties +required him on occasion to examine a suspicious-appearing Mexican with +decidedly indelicate thoroughness. And all this did not tend to make the +bridge a popular promenade. + +But Harboro was not squeamish, nor did he entertain slavish thoughts of +how people would feel over a disregarded custom. He liked simplicity, and +moreover he felt the need of exercise now that his work kept him inactive +most of the time. He was at an age when men take on flesh easily. + +Nevertheless, people weren't favorably impressed when they looked down +from their old-fashioned equipages on their ride between the two +republics, and caught a glimpse of the chief clerk marching along the +bridge railing--often, as likely as not, in company with some chance +laborer or wanderer, whose garb clearly indicated his lowly estate. + +And when, finally, Harboro persuaded Sylvia to accompany him on one of +these walks of his, the limits of his eccentricity were thought to have +been reached. Indeed, not a few people, who might have been induced to +forget that his marriage had been a scandalous one, were inclined for the +first time to condemn him utterly when he required the two towns to +contemplate him in company with the woman he had married, both of them +running counter to all the conventions. + +The reason for this trip of Harboro's and Sylvia's was that Harboro wanted +Sylvia to have a new dress for a special occasion. + +It happened that two or three weeks after his marriage Harboro came upon +an interesting bit of intelligence in the Eagle Pass _Guide_, the town's +weekly newspaper. It was a Saturday afternoon (the day of the paper's +publication), and Harboro had gone up to the balcony overlooking the +garden. He had carried the newspaper with him. He did not expect to find +anything in the chronicles of local happenings, past or prospective, that +would interest him. But there was always a department of railroad +news--consisting mainly of personal items--which had for him the quality +of a letter from home. + +Sylvia was down-stairs at work in the dining-room, directing the efforts +of old Antonia. Perhaps I should say that she was extraordinarily happy. I +doubt very much if she had come to contemplate the married state through +Harboro's eyes; but she seemed to have feared that an avalanche would +fall--and none had fallen. Harboro had manifested an unswerving gentleness +toward her, and she had begun to "let down," as swimmers say, with +confidence in her ability to find bottom and attain the shore. + +When at length she went up to the balcony to tell Harboro that supper was +ready, she stood arrested by the pleasantly purposeful expression in his +eyes. She had learned, rather creditably, to anticipate him. + +"You are to have a new dress," he announced. + +"Yes.... Why?" + +"I see here"--he tapped the paper on his knee--"that they're getting ready +for their first dance of the winter at the Mesquite Club." + +She forgot herself. "But _we're_ not invited!" she said, frankly +incredulous. + +"Why no, not yet. But we shall be. Why shouldn't we be?" + +Her hand went to her heart in the old wistful way. "I don't know ... I +just thought we shouldn't be. Those affairs are for ... I've never thought +they would invite me to one of their dances." + +"Nonsense! They've invited me. Now they'll invite _us_. I suppose the best +milliners are across the river, aren't they?" + +She seemed unwilling to meet his eyes. "I believe some women get their +dresses made over there, and wear them back to this side--so they needn't +pay any duty. That is, if they're to be handsome dresses." + +"Well, this is going to be a handsome dress." + +She seemed pleased, undeniably; yet she changed the subject with evident +relief. "Antonia will be cross if we don't go right down. And you must +remember to praise the _enchalades_. She's tried with them ever so hard." +This wasn't an affectation on Sylvia's part. She was a good-hearted girl. + +"It's to be a handsome dress," repeated Harboro an hour later, when they +had returned to the balcony. It was dusk now, and little tapers of light +were beginning to burn here and there in the desert: small, open fires +where Mexican women were cooking their suppers of dried goat's meat and +_frijoles_. + +Said Sylvia: "If only.... Does it matter so much to you that they should +invite us?" + +"It matters to me on your account. Such things are yours by right. You +wouldn't be happy always with me alone. We must think of the future." + +Sylvia took his hand and stroked it thoughtfully. There _were_ moments +when she hungered for a bit of the comedy of life: laughter and other +youthful noises. The Mexican _bailes_ and their humble feasts were +delightful; and the song of the violins, and the odor of smoke, and the +innocent rivalries, and the night air. But the Mesquite Club.... + +"If only we could go on the way we are," she said finally, with a sigh of +contentment--and regret. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Harboro insisted upon her going across the river with him the next day, a +Sunday. It was now late in October, but you wouldn't have realized it +unless you had looked at the calendar. The sun was warm--rather too warm. +The air was extraordinarily clear. It was an election year and the town +had been somewhat disorderly the night before. Harboro and Sylvia had +heard the noises from their balcony: singing, first, and then shouting. +And later drunken Mexicans had ridden past the house and on out the +Quemado Road. A Mexican who is the embodiment of taciturnity when afoot, +will become a howling organism when he is mounted. + +Harboro had telephoned to see if an appointment could be made--to a madame +somebody whose professional card he had found in the _Guide_. And he had +been assured that monsieur would be very welcome on a Sunday. + +Sylvia was glad that it was not on a weekday, and that it was in the +forenoon, when she would be required to make her first public appearance +with her husband. The town would be practically deserted, save by a few +better-class young men who might be idling about the drug-store. They +wouldn't know her, and if they did, they would behave circumspectly. +Strangely enough, it was Sylvia's conviction that men are nearly all good +creatures. + +As it fell out it was Harboro and not Sylvia who was destined to be +humiliated that day--a fact which may not seem strange to the discerning. + +They had got as far as the middle of the Rio Grande bridge without +experiencing anything which marred the general effect of a stage set for a +Passion Play--but with the actors missing; and then they saw a carriage +approaching from the Mexican side. + +Harboro knew the horses. They were the General Manager's. And presently he +recognized the coachman. The horses were moving at a walk, very slowly; +but at length Harboro recognized the General Manager's wife, reclining +under a white silk sunshade and listening to the vivacious chatter of a +young woman by her side. They would be coming over to attend the services +in the Episcopal church in Eagle Pass, Harboro realized. Then he +recognized the young woman, too. He had met her at one of the affairs to +which he had been invited. He recalled her as a girl whose voice was too +high-pitched for a reposeful effect, and who created the impression that +she looked upon the social life of the border as a rather amusing +adventure. + +You might have supposed that they considered themselves the sole occupants +of the world as they advanced, perched on their high seat; and this, +Harboro realized, was the true fashionable air. It was an instinct rather +than a pose, he believed, and he was pondering that problem in psychology +which has to do with the fact that when people ride or drive they appear +to have a different mental organism from those who walk. + +Then something happened. The carriage was now almost at hand, and Harboro +saw the coachman turn his head slightly, as if to hear better. Then he +leaned forward and rattled the whip in its place, and the horses set off +at a sharp trot. There was a rule against trotting on the bridge, but +there are people everywhere who are not required to observe rules. + +Harboro paused, ready to lift his hat. He liked the General Manager's +wife. But the occupants of the carriage passed without seeing him. And +Harboro got the impression that there was something determined in the +casual air with which the two women looked straight before them. He got an +odd feeling that the most finely tempered steel of all lies underneath the +delicate golden filigree of social custom and laws. + +He was rather pleased at a conclusion which came to him: people of that +kind really _did_ see, then. They only pretended not to see. And then he +felt the blood pumping through the veins in his neck. + +"What is it?" asked Sylvia, with that directness which Harboro +comprehended and respected. + +"Why, those ladies ... they didn't seem quite the type you'd expect to see +here, did they?" + +"Oh, there's every type here," she replied lightly. She turned her eyes +away from Harboro. There was something in his face which troubled her. She +could not bear to see him with that expression of wounded sensibilities +and rebellious pride in his eyes. And she had understood everything. + +She did not break in upon his thoughts soon. She would have liked to +divert his mind, but she felt like a culprit who realizes that words are +often betrayers. + +And so they walked in silence up that narrow bit of street which connects +the bridge with Piedras Negras, and leads you under the balcony of what +used to be the American Consul's house, and on past the _cuartel_, where +the imprisoned soldiers are kept. Here, of course, the street broadens and +skirts the plaza where the band plays of an evening, and where the town +promenades round and round the little square of palms and fountains, under +the stars. You may remember that a little farther on, on one side of the +plaza, there is the immense church which has been building for a century, +more or less, and which is still incomplete. + +There were a few miserable-looking soldiers, with shapeless, colorless +uniforms, loitering in front of the _cuartel_ as Harboro and Sylvia +passed. + +The indefinably sinister character of the building affected Sylvia. "What +is it?" she asked. + +"It's where the republic keeps a body of its soldiers," explained Harboro. +"They're inside--locked up." + +They were both glad to sit down on one of the plaza benches for a few +minutes; they did so by a common impulse, without speaking. + +"It's the first time I ever thought of prisoners having what you'd call an +honorable profession," Sylvia said slowly. She gazed at the immense, low +structure with troubled eyes. Flags fluttered from the ramparts at +intervals, but they seemed oddly lacking in gallantry or vitality. + +"It's a barbarous custom," said Harboro shortly. He was still thinking of +that incident on the bridge. + +"And yet ... you might think of them as happy, living that way." + +"Good gracious! Happy?" + +"They needn't care about how they are to be provided for--and they have +their duties." + +"But they're _prisoners_, Sylvia!" + +"Yes, prisoners.... Aren't we all prisoners, somehow? I've sometimes +thought that none of us can do just what we'd like to do, or come or go +freely. We think we're free, as oxen in a treadmill think of themselves as +being free, I suppose. We think we're climbing a long hill, and that we'll +get to the top after a while. But at sundown the gate is opened and the +oxen are released. They've never really gotten anywhere." + +He turned to her with the stanch optimism she had grown accustomed to in +him. "A pagan doctrine, that," he said spiritedly. + +"A pagan doctrine.... I wonder what that means." + +"Pagans are people who don't believe in God. I am not speaking of the God +of the churches, exactly. I mean a good influence." + +"Don't they believe in their own gods?" + +"No doubt. But you might call their own gods bad influences, as often as +not." + +"Ah--perhaps they're just simple folk who believe in their own +experiences." + +He had the troubled feeling that her intuitions, her fatalistic leanings, +were giving her a surer grasp of the subject than his, which was based +upon a rather nebulous, logical process that often brought him to +confusion. + +"I only know that I am free," he declared doggedly. + +The sun had warmed her to an almost vagrant mood. Her smile was delicate +enough, yet her eyes held a gentle taunt as she responded: "Not a bit of +it; you have a wife." + +"A wife--yes; and that gives me ten times the freedom I ever had before. A +man is like a bird with only one wing--before he finds a wife. His wife +becomes his other wing. There isn't any height beyond him, when he has a +wife." + +She placed her hands on her cheeks. "Two wings!" she mused.... "What's +between the wings?" + +"A heart, you may say, if you will. Or a soul. A capacity. Words are +fashioned by scholars--dull fellows. But you know what I mean." + +From the hidden depths of the _cuartel_ a silver bugle-note sounded, and +Sylvia looked to see if the soldiers sitting out in front would go away; +but they did not do so. She arose. "Would you mind going into the church a +minute?" she asked. + +"No; but why?" + +"Oh, anybody can go into those churches," she responded. + +"Anybody can go into _any_ church." + +"Yes, I suppose so. What I mean is that these old Catholic churches seem +different. In our own churches you have a feeling of being--what do you +say?--personally conducted. As if you were a visitor being shown +children's trinkets. There is something impersonal--something +boundless--in churches like this one here. The silence makes you think +that there is nobody in them--or that perhaps ... God isn't far away." + +He frowned. "But this is just where the trinkets are--in these churches: +the images, the painted figures, the robes, the whole mysterious +paraphernalia." + +"Yes ... but when there isn't anything going on. You feel an influence. I +remember going into a church in San Antonio once--a Protestant chapel, and +the only thing I could recall afterward was a Yankee clock that ticked too +fast and too loud. I never heard of anything so horribly inappropriate. +Time was what you thought of. Not eternity. You felt that the people would +be afraid of wasting a minute too much--as if their real concerns were +elsewhere." + +Harboro was instinctively combating the thought that was in her mind, so +far as there was a definite thought, and as far as he understood it. "But +why shouldn't there be a clock?" he asked. "If people feel that they ought +to give a certain length of time to worship, and then go back to their +work again, why shouldn't they have a clock?" + +"I suppose it's all right," she conceded; and then, with a faint smile: +"Yes, if it didn't tick too loud." + +She lowered her voice abruptly on the last word. They had passed across +the doorless portal and were in the presence of a group of silent, +kneeling figures: wretched women whose heads were covered with black +cotton _rebozos_, who knelt and faced the distant altar. They weren't in +rows. They had settled down just anywhere. And there were men: swarthy, +ill-shapen, dejected. Their lips moved noiselessly. + +Harboro observed her a little uneasily. Her sympathy for this sort of +thing was new to him. But she made none of the customary signs of +fellowship, and after a brief interval she turned and led the way back +into the sunshine. + +He was still regarding her strangely when she paused, just outside the +door, and opened a little hand-bag which depended from her arm. She was +quite intently devoted to a search for something. Presently she produced a +coin, and then Harboro observed for the first time that the tortured +figure of a beggar sat in the sun outside the church door. + +Sylvia leaned over with an impassive face and dropped the coin into the +beggar's cup. + +She chanced to glance at Harboro's face an instant later, and she was +dismayed a little by its expression: that of an almost violent distaste. +What did it mean? Was it because she had given a coin to the beggar? There +could have been no other reason. But why should he look as if her action +had contaminated her in some fashion--as if there had been communication +between her and the unfortunate _anciano_? As if there had been actual +contact? + +"You wouldn't have done that?" she said. + +"No, I shouldn't have done it," he replied. + +"I can't think why. The wretched creature--I should have felt troubled if +I'd ignored him." + +"But it's a profession. It's as much a part of the national customs as +dancing and drinking." + +"Yes, I know. A profession ... but isn't that all the more reason why we +should give him a little help?" + +"A reason why you should permit yourself to be imposed upon?" + +"I can't help thinking further than that. After all, it's he and his kind +that must have been imposed upon in the beginning. It's being a profession +makes me believe that all the people who might have helped him, who might +have given him a chance to be happy and respectable, really conspired +against him in some way. You have to believe that it's the rule that some +must be comfortable and some wretched." + +"A beggar is a beggar," said Harboro. "And he was filthy." + +"But don't you suppose he'd rather be the proprietor of a wine-shop, or +something of that sort, if he had had any choice?" + +"Well.... It's not a simple matter, of course. I'm glad you did what you +felt you ought to do." It occurred to Harboro that he was setting up too +much opposition to her whims--whims which seemed rooted in her principles +as well as her impulses. It was as if their minds were of different +shapes: hers circular, his square; so that there could be only one point +of contact between them--that one point being their love for each other. +There would be a fuller conformity after a while, he was sure. He must try +to understand her, to get at her odd point of view. She might be right +occasionally, when they were in disagreement. + +He touched her lightly on the shoulder. "I'm afraid we ought to be getting +on to the madame's," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Harboro would have made you think of a bear in a toy-shop when he sat down +in the tiny front room of Madame Boucher's millinery establishment. He was +uncomfortably, if vaguely, conscious of the presence of many hats, +displayed on affairs which were like unfinished music-racks. + +He had given Madame Boucher certain instructions--or perhaps liberties +would be a better word. Mrs. Harboro was to be shown only the best +fabrics, he told her; and no pains were to be spared to make a dress which +would be a credit to madame's establishment. Madame had considered this, +and him, and had smiled. Madame's smile had impressed him curiously. There +had been no co-operation between lips and eyes. The eyes had opened a +little wider, as if with a stimulated rapaciousness. The lips had opened +to the extent of a nicely achieved, symmetrical crescent of teeth. It made +Harboro think of a carefully constructed Jack-o'-Lantern. + +Sylvia had asked him if he wouldn't help in making a choice, but he had +looked slightly alarmed, and had resolutely taken a seat which afforded a +view of the big _Casa Blanca_ across the way: an emporium conducted on a +big scale by Germans. He even became oblivious to the discussion on the +other side of the partition, where Sylvia and madame presently entered +upon the preliminaries of the business in hand. + +The street was quite familiar to him. There had been a year or so, long +ago, when he had "made" Piedras Negras, as railroaders say, twice a week. +He hadn't liked the town very well. He saw its vice rather than its +romance. He had attended one bullfight, and had left his seat in disgust +when he saw a lot of men and women of seeming gentility applauding a silly +fellow whose sole stock in trade was an unblushing vanity. + +His imagination travelled on beyond the bull-pen, to the shabby +dance-halls along the river. It was a custom for Americans to visit the +dance-halls at least once. He had gone into them repeatedly. Other +railroaders who were his associates enjoyed going into these places, and +Harboro, rather than be alone in the town, had followed disinterestedly in +their wake, and had looked on with cold, contemplative eyes at the +disorderly picture they presented: unfortunate Mexican girls dancing with +cowboys and railroaders and soldiers and nondescripts. Three Mexicans, +with harp, violin, and 'cello had supplied the music: the everlasting +national airs. It seemed to Harboro that the whole republic spent half its +time within hearing of _Sobre las Olas_, and _La Paloma_, and _La +Golondrina_. He had heard so much of the emotional noises vibrating across +the land that when he got away from the throb of his engine, into some +silent place, it seemed to him that his ears reverberated with flutes and +strings, rather than the song of steam, which he understood and respected. +He had got the impression that music smelled bad--like stale wine and +burning corn-husks and scented tobacco and easily perishable fruits. + +He remembered the only woman who had ever made an impression upon him down +in those dance-halls: an overmature creature, unusually fair for a +Mexican, who spoke a little English, manipulating her lips quaintly, like +a child. He recalled her favorite expression: "My class is very fine!" She +had told him this repeatedly, enunciating the words with delicacy. She had +once said to him, commiseratingly: "You work very hard?" And when he had +confessed that his duties were onerous, she had brightened. "Much work, +much money," she had said, with the avidity of a boy who has caught a +rabbit in a trap. And Harboro had wondered where she had got such a +monstrously erroneous conception of the law of industrialism. + +The picture of the whirling figures came back to him: the vapor of dust in +the room, the loud voices of men at the bar, trying to be heard above the +din of the music and the dancing. There came back to him the memory of a +drunken cowboy, nudging the violinist's elbow as he played, and shouting: +"Give us _Dixie_--give us a white man's tune"--and the look of veiled +hatred in the slumbrous eyes of the Mexican musician, who had inferred the +insult without comprehending the words. + +He recalled other pictures of those nights: the Indian girls who might be +expected to yell in the midst of a dance if they had succeeded in +attracting the attention of a man who usually danced with some one else. +And there were other girls with a Spanish strain in them--girls with a +drop of blood that might have been traced back a hundred years to Madrid +or Seville or Barcelona. Small wonder if such girls felt like shrieking +too, sometimes. Not over petty victories, and with joy; but when their +hearts broke because the bells of memory called to them from away in the +barred windows of Spain, or in walled gardens, or with the shepherd lovers +of Andalusia. + +If you danced with one of them you paid thirty cents at the bar and got a +drink, while the girl was given a check good for fifteen cents in the +trade of the place. The girls used to cash in their checks at the end of a +night's work at fifty cents a dozen. It wasn't quite fair; but then the +proprietor was a business man. + +"My class is very fine!" The words came back to Harboro's mind. Good +God!--what had become of her? There had been a railroad man, a fellow +named Peterson, who was just gross enough to fancy her--a good chap, too, +in his way. Courageous, energetic, loyal--at least to other men. He had +occasionally thought that Peterson meant to take the poor, pretentious +creature away from the dance-halls and establish her somewhere. He had not +seen Peterson for years now. + +... Sylvia emerged from behind the thin partition, sighing and smiling. +"Did it seem very long?" she asked. "It's hard to make up your mind. It's +like taking one color out of the rainbow and expecting it to look as +pretty as the whole rainbow. But I'm ready now." + +"Remember, a week from Wednesday," called Madame Boucher, as Harboro and +Sylvia moved toward the door. + +Harboro looked at Sylvia inquiringly. + +"For the try-on," she explained. "Yes, I'll be here." She went out, +Harboro holding the door open for her. + +Out on the sidewalk she almost collided with a heavy man, an American--a +gross, blond, good-natured creature who suddenly smiled with extreme +gratification. "Hello!--_Sylvia!_" he cried. He seized her by the hand and +drew her close. + +Harboro stood on the door-step and looked down--and recognized Peterson. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART II + +THE TIME OF FLAME + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Peterson felt the dark shadow of Harboro immediately. He looked up into +the gravely inquiring face above him, and then he gave voice to a new +delight. "Hello!--HARBORO!" He dropped Sylvia's hand as if she no longer +existed. An almost indefinable change of expression occurred in his ruddy, +radiant face. It was as if his joy at seeing Sylvia had been that which we +experience in the face of a beautiful illusion; and now, seeing Harboro, +it was as if he stood in the presence of a cherished reality. He grasped +Harboro's hand and dragged him down from the step. "Old Harboro!" he +exclaimed. + +"You two appear to have met before," remarked Harboro, looking with quiet +inquiry from Sylvia to Peterson, and back to Sylvia. + +"Yes, in San Antonio," she explained. It had been in Eagle Pass, really, +but she did not want Harboro to know. + +The smile on Peterson's face had become curiously fixed. "Yes, in San +Antonio," he echoed. + +"He knew my father," added Sylvia. + +"A particular friend," said Peterson. And then, the lines of mirth on his +face becoming a little less rigid and the color a little less ruddy, he +added to Sylvia: "Doesn't your father occasionally talk about his old +friend _Peterson?_" + +Harboro interrupted. "At any rate, you probably don't know that she is +Mrs. Harboro now." + +Peterson appeared to be living entirely within himself for the moment. He +might have made you think of the Trojan Horse--innocuous without, but +teeming with belligerent activity within. He seemed to be laughing +maliciously, though without movement or noise. Then he was all frank +joyousness again. "Good!" he exclaimed. He smote Harboro on the shoulder. +"Good!" He stood apart, vigorously erect, childishly pleased. "Enjoying a +holiday?" he asked. + +And when Harboro nodded he became animated again. "You're both going to +take dinner with me--over at the _Internacional_. We'll celebrate. I've +got to take my train out in an hour--I've got a train now, Harboro." +(Harboro had noted his conductor's uniform.) "We'll just have time. We can +have a talk." + +Harboro recalled a score of fellows he had known up and down the line, +with most of whom he had gotten out of touch. Peterson would know about +some of them. He realized how far he had been removed from the spontaneous +joys of the railroad career since he had been in the office. And Peterson +had always been a friendly chap, with lots of good points. + +"Should you like it, Sylvia?" he asked. + +She had liked Peterson, too. He had always been good-natured and generous. +He had seemed often almost to understand.... "I think it would be nice," +she replied. She was afraid there was a note of guilt in her voice. She +wished Harboro had refused to go, without referring the matter to her. + +"I could telephone to Antonia," he said slowly. It seemed impossible to +quicken his pulses in any way. "She needn't get anything ready." + +"I could do it," suggested Sylvia. She felt she'd rather not be left alone +with Peterson. "I could use Madame Boucher's telephone." + +But Harboro had already laid his hand on the door. "Better let me," he +said. "I can do it quicker." He knew that Antonia would want to +remonstrate, to ask questions, and he wanted Sylvia to enjoy the occasion +whole-heartedly. He went back into the milliner's shop. + +"_Peterson_," said the man who remained on the sidewalk with Sylvia. + +"I remember," she replied, her lips scarcely moving, her eyes avoiding his +burning glance. "And ... in San Antonio." + +They were rather early for the midday meal when they reached the +_Internacional_; indeed, they were the first to enter the dining-room. +Nevertheless the attitudes of the Mexican waiters were sufficient +assurance that they might expect to be served immediately. + +Peterson looked at his watch and compared it with the clock in the +dining-room. "The train from Spofford is late," he said. "It's due now." +He pitched his head up like a dog. "There she is!" he exclaimed. There was +the rumble of a train crossing the bridge. "They'll be coming in right +away." He indicated the empty tables by a glance. + +Harboro knew all about the train schedules and such matters. He knew that +American tourists bound for Mexico would be coming over on that train, and +that they would have an hour for dinner while their baggage was passing +through the hands of the customs officials. + +They had given their orders and were still waiting when the train pulled +in at the station, close at hand, and in a moment the dining-room became +noisy. + +"Travel seems pretty light," commented Peterson. He appeared to be trying +to make conversation; he was obviously under some sort of constraint. +Still, he had the genuine interest of the railroader in the subjects he +mentioned. + +Harboro had not observed that there was not even one woman among the +travellers who entered; but Peterson noted the fact, mentioning it in the +tone of one who has been deprived of a natural right. And Harboro wondered +what was the matter with a man who saw the whole world, always, solely in +relation to women. He sensed the fact that Peterson was not entirely +comfortable. "He's probably never grown accustomed to being in the company +of a decent woman," he concluded. He tried to launch the subject of old +associates. It seemed that Peterson had been out in Durango for some time, +but he had kept in touch with most of the fellows on the line to the City. +He began to talk easily, and Harboro was enjoying the meeting even before +the waiter came back with their food. + +Sylvia was ill at ease. She was glad that Harboro and Peterson had found +something to talk about. She began to eat the amber-colored grapes the +waiter had placed before her. She seemed absent-minded, absorbed in her +own thoughts. And then she forgot self in the contemplation of a man and a +child who had come in and taken a table at the other end of the +dining-room. The man wore a band of crape around his arm. The child, a +little girl of five or six, had plainly sobbed herself into a condition +verging upon stupor. She was not eating the dinner which had been brought +to her, though she occasionally glanced with miserable eyes at one dish or +another. She seemed unable to help herself, and at intervals a dry sob +shook her tiny body. + +Sylvia forgot the grapes beside her plate; she was looking with womanly +pity at that little girl, and at the man, who seemed sunk into the depths +of despair. + +Peterson followed her compassionate glance. "Ah," he explained, "it's a +chap who came up from Paila a little while back. He had his wife with him. +She was dying, and she wanted to be buried in Texas. I believe he's in +some sort of business down in Paila." + +The spirit of compassion surrounded Sylvia like a halo. She had just noted +that the little girl was making a stupendous effort to conquer her sobs, +to "be good," as children say. With a heroic resolve which would have been +creditable to a Joan of Arc, the little thing suddenly began to try to eat +from one of the dishes, but her hands trembled so that she was quite +helpless. Her efforts seemed about to suffer a final collapse. + +And then Sylvia pushed her chair back and arose. There was a tremulous +smile on her lips as she crossed the room. She paused by that man with +crape on his sleeve. "I wonder if you won't let me help," she said. Her +voice would have made you think of rue, or of April rain. She knelt beside +the child's chair and possessed herself of a tiny hand with a persuasive +gentleness that would have worked miracles. Her face was uplifted, soft, +beaming, bright. She was scarcely prepared for the passionate outburst of +the child, who suddenly flung forth eager hands with a cry of surrender. +Sylvia held the convulsed body against her breast, tucking the distorted +face up under her chin. "There!" she soothed, "there!" She carried her +charge out of the room without wasting words. She had observed that when +the child came to her the man had seemed on the point of surrender, too. +With an effort he had kept himself inert, with a wan face. He had the +dubious, _sounding_ expression of one who stands at a door with his back +to the light and looks out into the dark. + +Before she had brought the child back, washed and comforted, to help her +with her food, Peterson had forgotten the interruption entirely. Taking +advantage of Sylvia's absence (as if she had been an interfering factor in +the meeting, but scarcely a third person), he turned keen eyes upon +Harboro. "Old Harboro!" he said affectionately and musingly. Then he +seemed to be swelling up, as if he were a mobile vessel filled with water +that had begun to boil. He became as red as a victim of apoplexy. His eyes +filled with an unholy mirth, his teeth glistened. His voice was a mere +wheeze, issuing from a cataclysm of agonized mirth. + +"_And so you've come to it at last!_" he managed to articulate. + +"Come to what?" inquired Harboro. His level glance was disconcerting. + +Peterson was on the defensive immediately. "You used not to care for +women--or you claimed you didn't." + +"Oh! I didn't understand. I used not to care for--a certain class of +women. I don't yet." + +The threatened boiling-over process was abruptly checked, as if a lid had +been lifted. "Oh!" said Peterson weakly. He gazed at a fragment of roast +beef on his plate. It might have been some sort of strange insect. He +frowned at it. And then his eyes blazed steadily and brightly. He did not +look at Harboro again for a long time. + +Sylvia came back, moving a little shyly, and pushing a strand of hair back +into its place. She looked across the dining-room to where the child was +talking with old-fashioned sedateness to her father. She had forgotten her +tragedy--for the moment. The man appeared to have forgotten, too. + +But Peterson's dinner turned out to be a failure, after all. Conversation +became desultory, listless. + +They arose from their places at last and left the room. On the street they +stood for a moment, but nothing was said about another meeting. Harboro +thought of inviting Peterson over to the house; but he fancied Sylvia +wouldn't like it; and besides, the man's grossness was there, more patent +than ever, and it stood between them. + +"Well, good-by," said Peterson. He shook hands with Harboro and with +Sylvia. But while he shook hands with Sylvia he was looking at Harboro. +All that was substantial in the man's nature was educed by men, not by +women; and he was fond of Harboro. To him Sylvia was an incident, while +Harboro was an episode. Harboro typified work and planning and the rebuffs +of the day. Sylvia meant to him only a passing pleasure and the relaxation +of the night or of a holiday. + +As he went away he seemed eager to get around a corner somewhere. He +seemed to be swelling up again. You might have supposed he was about to +explode. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Sylvia's dress made its appearance in due course in the house on the +Quemado Road. + +Sylvia could not understand why Harboro should have arranged to have it +delivered according to routine, paying the duty on it. It seemed to her a +waste of money, a willingness to be a victim of extortion. Why should the +fact that the river was there make any difference? It was some scheme of +the merchants of Eagle Pass, probably, the purpose of which was to compel +you to buy from them, and pay higher prices, and take what you didn't +want. + +The dress was a wonderful affair: a triumph of artful simplicity. It was +white, with a suggestion of warmth: an effect produced by a second fabric +underlying the visible silk. It made Sylvia look like a gentle queen of +marionettes. A set of jewelry of silver filigree had been bought to go +with it: circles of butterflies of infinite delicacy for bracelets, and a +necklace. You would have said there was only wanting a star to bind in her +hair and a wand for her to carry. + +But the Mesquite Club ball came and went, and the Harboros were not +invited. + +Harboro was stunned. The ball was on a Friday night: and on Saturday he +went up to the balcony of his house with a copy of the _Guide_ clutched in +his hand. He did not turn to the railroad news. He was interested only in +the full-column, first-page account of the ball at the Mesquite Club. +There was the customary amount of fine writing, including a patent +straining for new adjectives to apply to familiar decorations. And then +there was a list of the names of the guests. Possibly Piedras Negras +hadn't been included--and possibly he was still regarded as belonging to +the railroad offices, and the people across the river. + +But no, there were the names: heads of departments and the usual +presentable clerks--young Englishmen with an air. The General Manager, as +Harboro knew, was on a trip to Torreon; but otherwise the list of names +was sufficient evidence that this first ball of the season had been a +particularly ambitious affair. + +Sylvia was standing alone in the dining-room while Harboro frowned darkly +over the list of names before him. The physical Sylvia was in the +dining-room; but her mind was up on the balcony with Harboro. She was +watching him as he scowled at the first page of the _Guide_. But if +chagrin was the essence of the thing that bothered Harboro, something far +deeper caused Sylvia to stand like a slim, slumbering tree. She was +frightened. Harboro would begin to ask why? And he was a man. He would +guess the reason. He would begin to realize that mere obscurity on the +part of his wife was not enough to explain the fact that the town refused +to recognize her existence. And then...? + +Antonia spoke to her once and again without being heard. Would the senora +have the roast put on the table now, or would she wait until the senor +came down-stairs? She decided for herself, bringing in the roast with an +entirely erroneous belief that she was moving briskly. An ancient Mexican +woman knows very well what the early months of marriage are. There is a +flame, and then there are ashes. Then the ashes must be removed by mutual +effort and embers are discovered. Then life is good and may run along +without any annoyances. + +When the senor went up-stairs with scarcely a word to the senora, Antonia +looked within, seeming to notice nothing. But to herself she was saying: +"The time of ashes." The bustle of the domestic life was good at such a +time. She brought in the roast. + +Harboro, with the keen senses of a healthy man who is hungry, knew that +the roast had been placed on the table, but he did not stir. The _Guide_ +had slipped from his knee to the floor, and he was looking away to the +darkening tide of the Rio Grande. He had looked at his problem from every +angle, and now he was coming to a conclusion which did him credit. + +... They had not been invited to the ball. Well, what had he done that +people who formerly had gone out of their way to be kind to him should +ignore him? (It did not occur to him for an instant that the cause lay +with Sylvia.) He was not a conceited man, but ... an eligible bachelor +must, certainly, be regarded more interestedly than a man with a wife, +particularly in a community where the young women were blooming and +eligible men were scarce. They had drawn him into their circle because +they had regarded him as a desirable husband for one of their young women. +He remembered now how the processes of the social mill had brought him up +before this young woman and that until he had met them all: how, often, he +had found himself having a _tete-a-tete_ with some kindly disposed girl +whom he never would have thought of singling out for special attention. He +hadn't played their game. He might have remained a bachelor and all would +have been well. There would always have been the chance of something +happening. But he had found a wife outside their circle. He had, in +effect, snubbed them before they had snubbed him. He remembered now how +entirely absorbed he had been in his affair with Sylvia, and how the +entire community had become a mere indistinct background during those days +when he walked with her and planned their future. There wasn't any +occasion for him to feel offended. He had ignored the town--and the town +had paid him back in his own coin. + +He had conquered his black mood entirely when Sylvia came up to him. She +regarded him a moment timidly, and then she put her hand on his shoulder. +He looked up at her with the alert kindliness which she had learned to +prize. + +"I'm afraid you're fearfully disappointed," she said. + +"I was. But I'm not now." He told her what his theory was, putting it into +a few detached words. But she understood and brightened immediately. + +"Do you suppose that's it?" she asked. + +"What else could it be?" He arose. "Isn't Antonia ready?" + +"I think so. And there are so many ways for us to be happy without going +to their silly affairs. Imagine getting any pleasure out of sitting around +watching a girl trying to get a man! That's all they amount to, those +things. We'll get horses and ride. It's ever so much more sensible." + +She felt like a culprit let out of prison as she followed him down into +the dining-room. For the moment she was no longer the fatalist, foreseeing +inevitable exposure and punishment. Nothing had come of their meeting with +Peterson--an incident which had taken her wholly by surprise, and which +had threatened for an instant to result disastrously. She had spent +wakeful hours as a result of that meeting; but the cloud of apprehension +had passed, leaving her sky serene again. And now Harboro had put aside +the incident of the Mesquite Club ball as if it did not involve anything +more than a question of pique. + +She took her place at the end of the table, and propped her face up in her +hands while Harboro carved the roast. Why shouldn't she hope that the +future was hers, to do with as she would--or, at least, as she could? That +her fate now lay in her own hands, and not in every passing wind of +circumstance, seemed possible, even probable. If only.... + +A name came into her mind suddenly; a name carved in jagged, sinister +characters. If only Fectnor would stay away off there in the City. + +She did not know why that name should have occurred to her just now to +plague her. Fectnor was an evil bird of passage who had come and gone. +Such creatures had no fixed course. He had once told her that only a fool +ever came back the way he had gone. He belonged to the States, somewhere, +but he would come back by way of El Paso, if he ever came back; or he +would drift over toward Vera Cruz or Tampico. + +Fectnor was one of those who had trod that path through the mesquite to +Sylvia's back door in the days which were ended. But he was different from +the others. He was a man who was lavish with money--but he expected you to +pick it up out of the dust. He was of violent moods; and he had that +audacity--that taint of insanity, perhaps--which enables some men to +maintain the reputation of bad men, of "killers," in every frontier. When +Fectnor had come he had seemed to assume the right of prior possession, +and others had yielded to him without question. Indeed, it was usually +known when the man was in town, and during these periods none came to +Sylvia's door save one. He even created the impression that all others +were poachers, and that they had better be wary of him. She had been +afraid of him from the first; and it had seemed to her that her only cross +was removed when she heard that Fectnor had got a contract down in the +interior and had gone away. That had happened a good many months ago; and +Sylvia remembered now, with a feeling as of an icy hand on her heart, that +if her relationships with many of the others in those old days were +innocent enough--or at best marred only by a kindly folly--there had been +that in her encounters with Fectnor which would forever damn her in +Harboro's eyes, if the truth ever reached him. He would have the right to +call her a bad woman; and if the word seemed fantastic and unreal to her, +she knew that it would not seem so to Harboro. + +If only Fectnor.... + +She winked quickly two or three times, as if she had been dreaming. +Antonia had set her plate before her, and the aroma of the roast was in +her nostrils. Harboro was regarding her serenely, affectionately. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +They were happier than ever, following that adjusting episode. + +Harboro felt that his place had been assigned to him, and he was +satisfied. He would have to think of ways of affording diversion for +Sylvia, of course; but that could be managed, and in the meantime she +seemed disposed to prolong the rapturous and sufficient joys of their +honeymoon. He would be on the lookout, and when the moment of reaction +came he would be ready with suggestions. She had spoken of riding. There +would be places to go. The _bailes_ out at the Quemado; weddings far out +in the chaparral. Many Americans attended these affairs in a spirit of +adventure, and the ride was always delightful. There was a seduction in +the desert winds, in the low-vaulted skies with their decorative schemes +of constellations. + +He was rather at a loss as to how to meet the people who had made a fellow +of him. There was Dunwoodie, for example. He ran into Dunwoodie one +morning on his way to work, and the good fellow had stopped him with an +almost too patent friendliness. + +"Come, stop long enough to have a drink," said Dunwoodie, blushing without +apparent cause and shaking Harboro awkwardly by the hand. And then, as if +this blunt invitation might prove too transparent, he added: "I was in a +game last night, and I'm needing one." + +There was no need for Dunwoodie to explain his desire for a drink--or his +disinclination to drink alone. Harboro saw nothing out of the ordinary in +the invitation; but unfortunately he responded before he had quite taken +the situation into account. + +"It's pretty early for me," he said. "Another time--if you'll excuse me." + +It was to be regretted that Harboro's manner seemed a trifle stiff; and +Dunwoodie read uncomfortable meanings into that refusal. He never repeated +the invitation; and others, hearing of the incident, concluded that +Harboro was too deeply offended by what the town had done to him to care +for anybody's friendship any more. The thing that the town had done to +Harboro was like an open page to everybody. Indeed, the people of Eagle +Pass knew that Harboro had been counted out of eligible circles +considerably before Harboro knew it himself. + +As for Sylvia, contentment overspread her like incense. She was to have +Harboro all to herself, and she was not to be required to run the gantlet +of the town's too-knowing eyes. She felt safe in that house on the Quemado +Road, and she hoped that she now need not emerge from it until old menaces +were passed, and people had come and gone, and she could begin a new +chapter. + +She was somewhat annoyed by her father during those days. He sent messages +by Antonia. Why didn't she come to see him? She was happy, yes. But could +she forget her old father? Was she that kind of a daughter? Such was the +substance of the messages which reached her. + +She would not go to see him. She could not bear to think of entering his +house. She had been homesick occasionally--that she could not deny. There +had been moments when the new home oppressed her by its orderliness, by +its strangeness. And she was fond of her father. She supposed she ought +not to be fond of him; he had always been a worthless creature. But such +matters have little to do with the law of cause and effect. She loved +him--there was the truth, and it could not be ignored. But with every +passing day the house under the mesquite-tree assumed a more terrible +aspect in her eyes, and the house on the Quemado Road became more +familiar, dearer. + +Unknown to Harboro, she sent money to her father. He had intimated that if +she could not come there were certain needs ... there was no work to be +obtained, seemingly.... And so the money which she might have used for her +own pleasure went to her father. She was not unscrupulous in this matter. +She did not deceive Harboro. She merely gave to her father the money which +Harboro gave her, and which she was expected to use without explaining how +it was spent. + +With the passing of days she ceased to worry about those messages of her +father--she ceased to regard them as reminders that the tie between her +old life and the new was not entirely broken. And following the increased +assurances of her safety in Harboro's house and heart, she began to give +rein to some of the coquetries of her nature. + +She became an innocent siren, studying ways of bewitchment, of endearment. +She became a bewildering revelation to him, amazing him, delighting him. +After he had begun to conclude that he knew her she became not one woman, +but a score of women: demure, elfin, pensive, childlike, sedate, aloof, +laughing--but always with her delight in him unconcealed: the mask she +wore always slipping from its place to reveal her eagerness to draw closer +to him, and always closer. + +The evenings were beginning to be cool, and occasionally she enticed him +after nightfall into the room he had called her boudoir. She drew the +blinds and played the infinitely varied game of love with him. She asked +him to name some splendid lover, some famous courtier. Ingomar? Very well, +he should be Ingomar. What sort of lover was he?... And forthwith her +words, her gestures and touches became as chains of flowers to lead him to +do her bidding. Napoleon? She saluted him, and marched prettily before +him--and halted to claim her reward in kisses. He was Antony and Leander. + +When she climbed on his knees with kisses for Leander he pretended to be +surprised. "More kisses?" he asked. + +"But these are the first." + +"And those other kisses?" + +"They? Oh, they were for Antony." + +"Ah, but if you have kissed Antony, Leander does not want your kisses." + +Her face seemed to fade slightly, as if certain lights had been +extinguished. She withdrew a little from him and did not look at him. +"Why?" she asked presently. The gladness had gone out of her voice. + +"Well ... kisses should be for one lover; not for two." + +She pondered, and turned to him with an air of triumph. "But you see, +these are new kisses for Leander. They are entirely different. They've +never been given before. They've got nothing to do with the others." + +He pretended to be convinced. But the kisses she gave to Leander were less +rapturous. She was thinking. + +"I'm afraid you don't think so highly of ... Leander," he suggested. +"Suppose I be ... Samson?" + +She leaned her head on his shoulder as if she had grown tired. + +"Samson was a very strong man," he explained. "He could push a house +down." + +That interested her. + +"Would you like to be Samson?" she asked. + +"I think it might be nice ... but no--the woman who kissed Samson betrayed +him. I think I won't be Samson, after all." + +She had been nervously fingering the necklace of gold beads at her throat; +and suddenly she uttered a distressed cry. The string had broken, and the +beads fell in a yellow shower to the rug. + +She climbed down on her knees beside him and picked up the beads, one by +one. + +"Let them go," he urged cheerfully, noting her distress. "Come back. I'll +be anybody you choose. Even Samson." + +That extinguished light seemed to have been turned on again. She looked up +at him smiling. "No, I don't want you to be Samson," she said. "And I +don't want to lose my beads." + +He regarded her happily. She looked very little and soft there on the rug. +"You look like a kitten," he declared. + +She picked up the last bead and looked at the unstable baubles in her pink +left palm. She tilted her hand so that they rolled back and forth. "Could +a kitten look at a king?" she asked with mock earnestness. + +"I should think it could, if there happened to be any king about." + +She continued to make the beads roll about on her hand. "I'm going to be a +kitten," she declared with decision. "Would you like me to be a kitten?" +She raised herself on her knees and propped her right hand behind her on +the rug for support. She was looking earnestly into his eyes. + +"If you'd like to be," he replied. + +"Hold your hand," she commanded. She poured the beads into his immense, +hard palm. "Don't spill them." She turned about on the rug on hands and +knees, and crept away to the middle of the floor. She turned and arose to +her knees, and rested both hands before her on the floor. She held her +head high and _meowed_ twice so realistically that Harboro leaned forward, +regarding her with wonder. She lowered herself and turned and crept to the +window. There she lifted herself a little and patted the tassel which hung +from the blind. She continued this with a certain sedateness and +concentration until the tassel went beyond her reach and caught in the +curtain. Then she let herself down again, and crawled to the middle of the +floor. Now she was on her knees, her hands on the floor before her, her +body as erect as she could hold it. Again she _meowed_--this time with a +certain ennui; and finally she raised one arm and rubbed it slowly to and +fro behind her ear.... She quickly assumed a defensive attitude, crouching +fiercely. An imaginary dog had crossed her path. She made an explosive +sound with her lips. She regained her tranquillity, staring with slowly +returning complacency and contempt while the imaginary dog disappeared. + +Harboro did not speak. He looked on in amazed silence to see what she +would do next. His swarthy face was too sphinx-like to express pleasure, +yet he was not displeased. He was thinking: She is a child--but what an +extraordinary child! + +She crawled toward him and leaned against his leg. _She was purring!_ + +Harboro stooped low to see how she did it, but her hair hid her lips from +him. + +He seized her beneath the arms and lifted her until her face was on a +level with his. He regarded her almost uncomfortably. + +"Don't you like me to be a kitten?" She adjusted her knees on his lap and +rested her hands on his shoulders. She regarded him gravely. + +"Well ... a kitten gets to be a cat," he suggested. + +She pulled one end of his long mustache, regarding him intently. "Oh, a +cat. But this is a different kind of a kitten entirely. It's got nothing +to do with cats." She held her head on one side and pulled his mustache +slowly through her fingers. "It won't curl," she said. + +"No, I'm not the curly sort of man." + +She considered that. It seemed to present an idea that was new to her. +"Anyway, I'm glad you're a big fellow." + +As he did not respond to this, she went on: "Those little shrimps--you +couldn't be a kitten with them. They would have to be puppies. That's the +only fun you could have." + +"Sylvia!" he remonstrated. He adjusted her so that she sat on his lap, +with her face against his throat. He was recalling that other Sylvia: the +Sylvia of the dining-room, of the balcony; the circumspect, sensible, +comprehending Sylvia. But the discoveries he was making were not +unwelcome. Folly wore for him a face of ecstasy, of beauty. + +As she nestled against him, he whispered: "Is the sandman coming?" + +And she responded, with her lips against his throat: "Yes--if you'll carry +me." + +Antonia was wrong. This was not the time of ashes. It was the time of +flame. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART III + +FECTNOR, THE PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +And then Fectnor came. + +The date of the election was drawing near, and a new sheriff was to be +jockeyed into office by the traditional practice of corralling all the +male adult Mexicans who could be reached, and making them vote just so. +The voice of the people was about to be heard in the land. + +It was a game which enjoyed the greatest popularity along the border in +those years. Two played at it: the opposing candidates. And each built him +a corral and began capturing Mexicans two or three days before the +election. + +The Mexicans were supposed to have their abodes (of a sort) in Maverick +County; but there was nothing conservative in the rules under which the +game was played. If you could get a consignment of voters from Mexico you +might do so, resting assured that your opponent would not hesitate to fill +his corral with citizens from the other side of the river. + +The corrals were amazing places. Dispensers of creature comforts were +engaged. Barbecued meat and double rations of _mezcal_ were provided. Your +Mexican voters, held rigorously as prisoners, were in a state of collapse +before the day of the election. They were conveyed in carryalls to the +polls, and heads were counted, and the candidate got credit for the full +number of constituents he had dumped out into the sunshine. + +And then your voter disappeared back into the chaparral, or over the Rio +Grande bridge, and pondered over the insanity of the _gringos_. + +It will be seen that the process touched upon was less pleasant than +simple. Among the constituents in the corrals there was often a tendency +to fight, and occasionally a stubborn fellow had a clear idea that he +wanted to be in a different corral from the one in which he found himself. +There was needed a strong-handed henchman in these cases. Jesus Mendoza +was the henchman for one faction, but the other faction needed a henchman, +too. + +And so Fectnor came. + +He had the reputation of knowing every Mexican in Maverick County and in +the territory immediately contiguous thereto. Many of them had been +members of his gangs when he had contracts in the neighborhood of Eagle +Pass. He knew precisely which of them could be depended upon to remain +docile under all manner of indignity, and which of them had a bad habit of +placing a sudden check on their laughter and lunging forward with a knife. +They knew him, too. They feared him. They knew he could be coldly +brutal--an art which no Mexican has ever mastered. The politicians knew +that getting Fectnor was almost equivalent to getting the office. It was +more economical to pay him his price than to employ uncertain aids who +would have sold their services much more cheaply. + +Harboro and Sylvia were sitting on their balcony the second night before +the election. A warm wind had been blowing and it was quite pleasant out +of doors. + +One of the corrals lay not far from the house on the Quemado Road. Mounted +Mexicans had been riding past the house and on into the town all day, and, +contrary to usual custom, they were not to be seen later in the day +returning to the chaparral. They were being prepared to exercise their +suffrage privileges. + +As Harboro and Sylvia listened it was to be noted that over in the corral +the several noises were beginning to be blended in one note. The barbecue +fires were burning down; the evening meal had been served, with reserved +supplies for late comers. _Mezcal_ and cheap whiskey were being dispensed. +A low hum of voices arose, with the occasional uplifting of a drunken song +or a shout of anger. + +Suddenly Harboro sat more erect. A shout had arisen over in the corral, +and a murmur higher and more sinister than the dominant note of the place +grew steadily in intensity. It came to a full stop when a pistol-shot +arose above the lesser noises like a sky-rocket. + +"He's getting his work in," commented Harboro. He spoke to himself. He had +forgotten Sylvia for the moment. + +"He? Who?" inquired Sylvia. + +He turned toward her in the dusk and replied--with indifference in his +tone now--"Fectnor." + +She shrank back so that her face would be out of his line of vision. +"Fectnor!" she echoed. + +"A fellow they've brought up from the interior to help with the election. +A famous bad man, I believe." + +There was silence for a long interval. Harboro supposed the matter did not +interest her; but she asked at length: "You know him, then?" + +"Only by reputation. A fellow with a lot of bluff, I think. I don't +believe very much in bad men. He's managed to terrify the Mexicans somehow +or other." He had not noticed that her voice had become dull and low. + +"Fectnor!" she breathed to herself. She rocked to and fro, and after a +long interval, "Fectnor!" she repeated. + +He hitched his chair so that he could look at her. Her prolonged silence +was unusual. "Are you getting chilly?" he asked solicitously. + +"It does seem chilly, doesn't it?" she responded. + +They arose and went into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Antonia went marketing the next morning, and when she came back Sylvia met +her with fearful, inquiring eyes. She was terribly uneasy, and she was one +of those creatures who must go more than half-way to meet impending +danger. She was not at all surprised when Antonia handed her a sealed +envelope. + +The old servant did not linger to witness the reading of that written +message. She possessed the discretion of her race, of her age. The senora +had been married quite a time now. Doubtless there were old friends.... + +And Sylvia stood alone, reading the sprawling lines which her father had +written: + +"_Fectnor's here. He wants to see you. Better come down to the house. You +know he's likely to make trouble if he doesn't have his way._" + +She spelled out the words with contracted brows; and then for the moment +she became still another Sylvia. She tore the missive into bits. She was +pale with rage--rage which was none the less obsessing because it had in +it the element of terror. Her father dared to suggest such a thing! It +would have been bad enough if Fectnor had sent the summons himself; but +for her father to unite with him against her in such an affair! + +She tried to calm herself, succeeding but illy. "Antonia!" she called. +"Antonia!" For once her voice was unlovely, her expression was harsh. + +The startled old woman came with quite unprecedented alacrity. + +"Antonia, where did you see my father?" + +"On the street. He seemed to have waited for me." + +"Very well. You must find him again. It doesn't matter how long you +search. I want you to find him." + +She hurriedly framed a response to that note of her father's: + +"_I will not come. Tell Fectnor I never will see him again. He will not +dare to harm me._" + +As she placed this cry of defiance into an envelope and sealed and +addressed it certain words of Harboro's came back to her. That night of +their wedding he had lifted her in his powerful arms and had given her a +man's assurance: "I mean that you're to have all the help you want--that +you're to look to me for your strength." + +She reasoned shrewdly: Harboro wasn't the sort of man people would tell +things to--about her. They would know what to expect: intense passion, +swift punishment. + +And yet as she watched Antonia go away down the road, suggesting supine +submission rather than a friend in need, her heart failed her. Had she +done wisely? Fectnor had never stepped aside for any man. He seemed +actually to believe that none must deny him the things he wanted. He +seemed an insane creature when you thwarted him. There was something +terrible about his rages. + +She imagined seemingly impossible things: that Fectnor would come to the +house--perhaps while Harboro was there. He might kill Harboro. + +Alas, the evil she had done in those other days loomed before her now in +its true light: not merely as evil deeds, definitely ended with their +commission, but as fearful forces that went on existing, to visit her +again and destroy her. + +She began to hope that Fectnor would actually come to her--now, before +Harboro came home. At the worst she might save Harboro, and there was even +a chance that she could make Fectnor see her position as she saw it--that +she could persuade him to be merciful to her. Surely for the sake of +security and peace in all the years that lay before her.... A definite +purpose dawned in her eyes. She went to her room and began deliberately to +choose her most becoming street costume. + +She was ready to go out when Antonia returned. + +"Did you find him?" she asked. + +Yes, the old woman had found him and delivered the message. He had sent no +word in return; he had only glared at the bearer of the message and had +cursed her. + +"Well, never mind," said Sylvia soothingly. It occurred to her that it +must be a sad thing to be an old woman, and a Mexican, and to have to +serve as the wire over which the electric current flowed--and to feel only +the violence of the current without comprehending the words it carried. + +And now to find Fectnor--for this was what she meant to do. + +She would see him on the street, where publicity would protect her, even +if there were no friends to take her part. She would see him on the street +and explain why she could not meet him any more, why he must not ask it. +Certainly it would not look very well for her to be seen talking to him; +but she could not help that. She would be going out to do a little +shopping, ostensibly, and she would hope to encounter him on the street, +either coming or going. + +However, her earnest planning proved to be of no avail. Fectnor was +nowhere to be seen. + +She walked rather leisurely through the town--moving barely fast enough to +avoid the appearance of loitering. She walked circumspectly enough, +seemingly taking little interest in events or individuals. That she was +keenly on the alert for one familiar face no one would have guessed. + +She got quite to the end of the main street, and then she halted in +painful uncertainty. If she turned back now she would have to go on +steadily back to her home, save for a brief stop at one of the stores, or +else betray the fact to any who might be curiously observing her that she +was on the street on some secret mission. + +She stood for a space, trying to decide what to do. Often before she had +stood on that very spot to view the picture which men and the desert had +painted on a vast canvas down toward the river. She occupied a point of +vantage at the top of a long flight of stone steps, broken and ancient, +leading down to the Rio Grande and its basin. Along the water's edge in +the distance, down in the depths below her, ancient Mexican women were +washing garments by a process which must have been old in Pharaoh's time: +by spreading them on clean rocks and kneading them or applying brushes. +The river flowed placidly; the sunlight enveloped water and rock and shore +and the patient women bending over their tasks. Nineveh or Tyre might have +presented just such a picture of burdened women, concealing no one might +say what passions and fires under an exterior which suggested docility or +the unkind pressure of tradition's hand or even hopelessness. + +But Sylvia scarcely saw the picture now. She was recalling the words she +had written in that message to her father. If only she had not defied +Fectnor; if only she had made a plea for pity, or suggested a fear of her +husband--or if she hadn't sent any answer at all! + +It occurred to her that the exposure which menaced her was as nothing to +the perils to which she had subjected Harboro. She knew instinctively that +Harboro was not a man to submit to deliberate injury from any source. He +would defend himself in the face of any danger; he would defend that which +belonged to him. And Fectnor was cruel and unscrupulous and cunning. He +knew how to provoke quarrels and to gain advantages. + +She grew cold at the thought of losing Harboro. The inevitable +consequences of such a loss occurred to her. She would have to submit +always to Fectnor as long as he willed it. And afterward.... Ah, she must +find Fectnor! + +She retraced her steps. At a shop where silks were sold she entered. She +asked for a piece of ribbon. A particular shade of blue; she could not +describe it. She sat on a stool at the counter and kept an eye on the +street.... No, something darker than that, something less lustrous. She +examined bolt after bolt, and when at length it appeared that she was +quite unwilling to be pleased she made a choice. And always she watched +the street, hoping that Fectnor would pass. + +At last she went up the Quemado Road, walking disconsolately. The withered +immensity of the world broke her spirit. The vast stricken spaces were but +a material manifestation of those cruelties of nature which had broken her +long ago, and which could not be expected to withdraw their spell now that +the time had come for her destruction. + +She looked far before her and saw where the Quemado Road attained its +highest point and disappeared on the other side of a ridge. A house stood +there, lonely and serene. She had known it was a convent; but now she +observed it with eyes which really saw it for the first time. It had +looked cool even during the period of midsummer. There was shade--a +friendly garden. She had seen the Mother Superior once or twice: a large, +elderly woman who wore but lightly the sedate mien which concealed a +gentle humanity. + +What if she, Sylvia, were to go on past her own house, on up to the ridge, +and appeal to that unworldly woman for succor? Was there a refuge there +for such as she? + +But this was the merest passing fancy. Where the tides of life ran high +she had been moulded; here in the open she would meet her end, whatever +the end might be. + +She sat inside her house throughout that long day. Beside an open window +she kept her place, staring toward Eagle Pass, her eyes widening whenever +a figure appeared on the highway. + +But the individual she feared--Fectnor, her father, a furtive +messenger--did not appear. + +Harboro came at last: Harboro, bringing power and placidity. + +She ran out to the gate to meet him. Inside the house she flung herself +into his arms. + +He marvelled at her intensity. He held her a long moment in his embrace. +Then he gazed into her eyes searchingly. "Everything is all right," he +said--the words being an affirmation rather than a question. He had read +an expression of dread in her eyes. + +"Yes, everything is all right," she echoed. Everything _was_ right now. +She seemed to awaken from a horrible nightmare. Harboro's presence put to +flight an army of fears. She could scarcely understand why she had been so +greatly disturbed. No harm could come to him, or to her. He was too +strong, too self-contained, to be menaced by little creatures. The bigness +of him, the penetrating, kindly candor of his eyes, would paralyze base +minds and violent hands seeking to do him an injury. The law had +sanctioned their union, too--and the law was powerful. + +She held to that supporting thought, and during the rest of the evening +she was untroubled by the instinctive knowledge that even the law cannot +make right what the individual has made wrong. + +She was as light-hearted as a child that night, and Harboro, after the +irksome restraints of the day, rejoiced in her. They played at the game of +love again; and old Antonia, in her place down-stairs, thought of that +exchange of letters and darkly pondered. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The election came and went; the voice of the people had been heard, and +Maverick County had a new sheriff. In the house on the Quemado Road +Fectnor's name was heard no more. + +On the Saturday night following the election Harboro came home and found a +letter waiting for him on the table in the hall. He found also a +disquieted Sylvia, who looked at him with brooding and a question in her +eyes. + +He stopped where he stood and read the letter, and Sylvia watched with +parted lips--for she had recognized the handwriting on the envelope. + +Harboro's brows lowered into a frown. "It's from your father," he said +finally, lifting his eyes from the letter and regarding Sylvia. + +She tried to achieve an effect of only mild interest. "What can he have to +write to you about?" she asked. + +"Poor fellow--it seems he's been ill. Sylvia, how long has it been since +you visited your father?" + +"Does he want me to come to see him?" + +"He hints at that pretty strongly. Yes, that's really the substance of his +letter." + +"I've never been back since we were married." + +She led the way into the dining-room. Her manner was not quite responsive. +She made Harboro feel that this was a matter which did not concern him. + +"But isn't that--doesn't that seem rather neglectful?" + +She drew a chair away from the table and sat down facing him. "Yes, it +does seem so. I think I've hinted that I wasn't happy in my old home life; +but I've never talked very much about it. I ought to tell you, I think, +that I want to forget all about it. I want the old relationship broken off +completely." + +Harboro shook his head with decision. "That won't do," he declared. +"Believe me, you're making a mistake. You're a good deal younger than I, +Sylvia, and it's the way of the young to believe that for every old tie +broken a new one can be formed. At your age life seems to have an +abundance of everything. But you'll be dismayed, in a few years, to +discover that most things come to us but once, and that nearly all the +best things come to us in our youth." + +He stood before her with an air of such quiet conviction, of such tranquil +certainty of the truth of what he said that she could not meet his glance. +She had placed an elbow on the table, and was supporting her face in her +hand. Her expression was strangely inscrutable to the man who looked down +at her. + +"Your father must be getting old. If you shouldn't see him for a year or +so, you'd be fearfully grieved to note the evidences of failure: a slight +stoop, perhaps; a slower gait; a more troubled look in his eyes. I want to +help you to see this thing clearly. And some day you'll get word that he +is dead--and then you'll remember, too late, how you might have carried +little joys to him, how you might have been a better daughter...." + +She sprang up, shaking the tears from her eyes. "I'll go," she said. She +startled Harboro by that note of despair in her voice. "When does he wish +me to come?" + +"He says he is ill and alone. I think he would be glad if I could persuade +you to go this evening. Why not this evening?" + +Unfortunately, Harboro concealed a part of the truth in this. Her father +had quite definitely asked to have her come this evening. But Harboro +wished her to feel that she was acting voluntarily, that she was choosing +for herself, both as to the deed and as to the time of its doing. + +And Sylvia felt a wave of relief at the assurance that her father had not +set a definite time. Oh, surely the letter was just what it purported to +be--a cry of loneliness and an honest desire to see her. And Sylvia really +loved her father. There was that in her nature which made it impossible +for her to judge him. + +"I could go with you," ventured Harboro, "though he doesn't say anything +about my coming. I've felt we must both go soon. Of course, I need not +wait for an invitation." + +But Sylvia opposed this. "If he's ill," she said, "I think I ought to go +alone this time." She added to herself: "I don't want him ever to go. I +must make him believe that enough has been done if I go myself. I must +convince him that my father doesn't care to have him come." + +Nevertheless, she was quite resigned to the arrangement that had been made +for her. She helped Antonia make the final preparations for supper, and +she set off down the road quite cheerfully after they arose from the +table. Harboro watched her with a new depth of tenderness. This sweet +submission, the quick recognition of a filial duty once it was pointed out +to her--here were qualities which were of the essence of that childlike +beauty which is the highest charm in women. + +And Sylvia felt a strange eagerness of body and mind as she went on her +way. She had put all thought of the house under the mesquite-tree out of +mind, as far as possible. Becoming a closed book to her, the place and +certain things which had been dear to her had become indistinct in her +memory. Now that she was about to reopen the book various little familiar +things came back to her and filled her mind with eagerness. The tiny +canary in its cage--it would remember her. It would wish to take a bath, +to win her praise. There had been a few potted plants, too; and there +would be the familiar pictures--even the furniture she had known from +childhood would have eloquent messages for her. + +This was the frame of mind she was in as she opened her father's gate, and +paused for an instant to recall the fact that here she had stood when +Harboro appeared before her for the first time. It was near sundown now, +just as it had been then; and--yes, the goatherd was there away out on the +trail, driving his flock home. + +She turned toward the house; she opened the door eagerly. Her eyes were +beaming with happiness. + +But she was chilled a little by the sight of her father. Something Harboro +had said about her father changing came back to her. He _had_ +changed--just in the little while that had elapsed since her marriage. But +the realization of what that change was hurt her cruelly. He looked mean +and base as he had never looked before. The old amiable submission to +adversities had given place to an expression of petulance, of resentment, +of cunning, of cowardice. Or was it that Sylvia was looking at him with +new eyes? + +He sat just inside the door, by a window. He was in a rocking-chair, and +his hands lay heavily against the back of it. He had a blanket about him, +as if he were cold. He looked at her with a strange lack of responsiveness +when she entered the room. + +"I got your message," she said affectionately. "I am glad you let me know +you weren't feeling very well." She touched his cheeks with her hands and +kissed him. "You _are_ cold," she added, as if she were answering the +question that had occurred to her at sight of the blanket. + +She sat down near him, waiting for him to speak. He would have a great +many things to say to her, she thought. But he regarded her almost +stolidly. + +"Your marriage seems to have changed you," he said finally. + +"For the better, I hope!" + +"Well, that's according to the way you look at it. Cutting your old father +cold isn't for the better, as far as I can see." + +She did not resent the ungenerous use of that phrase, "old father," though +she could not help remembering that he was still under fifty, and that he +looked young for his years. It was just one of his mannerisms in +speaking. + +"I didn't do that, you know," she said. "Being married seems a wonderful +adventure. There is so much that is strange for you to get used to. But I +didn't forget you. You've seen Antonia--occasionally...?" + +The man moved his head so that it lay on one side against the chair-back. +"I thought you'd throw that up to me," he complained. + +"Father!" she remonstrated. She was deeply wounded. It had not been her +father's way to make baseless, unjust charges against her. Shiftless and +blind he had been; but there had been a geniality about him which had +softened his faults to one who loved him. + +"Well, never mind," he said, in a less bitter tone. And she waited, hoping +he would think of friendlier words to speak, now that his resentment had +been voiced. + +But he seemed ill at ease in her presence now. She might have been a +stranger to him. She looked about her with a certain fond expression which +speedily faded. Somehow the old things reminded her only of unhappiness. +They were meaner than she had supposed them to be. Their influence over +her was gone. + +She brought her gaze back to her father. He had closed his eyes as if he +were weary; yet she discerned in the lines of his face a hard fixity which +troubled her, alarmed her. Though his eyes were closed he did not present +a reposeful aspect. There was something really sinister about that alert +face with its closed eyes--as there is about a house with its blinds drawn +to hide evil enterprises. + +So she sat for interminable minutes, and it seemed to Sylvia that she was +not surprised when she heard the sound of tapping at the back door. + +She was not surprised, yet a feeling of engulfing horror came over her at +the sound. + +Her father opened his eyes now; and it seemed really that he had been +resting. "The boy from the drug-store," he said. "They were to send me +some medicine." + +He seemed to be gathering his energies to get up and admit the boy from +the drug-store, but Sylvia sprang to her feet and placed a restraining +hand on his shoulder. "Let me go," she said. + +There was an expression of pity and concern for her father in her eyes +when she got to the door and laid her hand on the latch. She was too +absent-minded to observe at first that the bolt had been moved into its +place, and that the door was locked. Her hand had become strange to the +mechanism before her, and she was a little awkward in getting the bolt out +of the way. But the expression of pity and concern was still in her eyes +when she finally pulled the door toward her. + +And then she seemed to have known all the time that it was Fectnor who +stood there. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +He slipped past her into the room, and when she uttered a forlorn cry of +defeat and shrank back he gripped her by the wrist. Holding her so, he +turned where he stood and locked the door again. Then he crossed the room, +and closed and bolted that other door which opened into the room where +Sylvia's father sat. + +Then he released her and stood his ground stolidly while she shrank away +from him, regarding him with incredulous questioning, with black terror. +She got the impression that he believed himself to have achieved a +victory; that there was no further occasion for him to feel anxious or +wary. It was as if the disagreeable beginning to a profitable enterprise +had been gotten over with. And that look of callous complacence was +scarcely more terrifying than his silence, for as yet he had not uttered a +word. + +And yet Sylvia could not regard herself as being really helpless. That +door into her father's room: while it held, her father could not come to +her, but she could go to her father. She had only to wait until Fectnor +was off his guard, and touch the bolt and make her escape. Yet she +perceived now, that for all Fectnor's seeming complacence, he remained +between her and that door. + +She looked about for other means of escape; but she knew immediately that +there was none. Her own bedroom opened off the room in which she was now +trapped; but it was a mere cubby-hole without an outer door or even a +window. On the other side of the room there was a window looking out +toward the desert; but even as her glance sought relief in that direction +she remembered that this window, of only half-sash dimensions, was nailed +into its place and was immovable. Against the dusty panes a bird-cage +hung, and she realized with an oddly ill-timed pang of sorrow that it was +empty. It was plain that the canary had died during her absence; and she +wondered if anything in all the world could seem so empty as a bird-cage +which had once had an occupant and had lost it. The sunset sky beyond that +empty cage and the uncleaned window-panes caught her glance: an infinitely +far-off drift of saffron with never a moving figure between it and the +window through which she looked. + +Then all her terrors were renewed by Fectnor's voice. He had sauntered to +a small table near the middle of the room and sat down on the end of it, +after shoving a chair in Sylvia's direction. + +"What's the matter with you, Sylvia?" he demanded. He scarcely seemed +angry: impatient would be the word, perhaps. + +Something in his manner, rather than his words, wiped out that chasm of +time that had been placed between them. It was as if she had talked with +him yesterday. She felt hideously familiar with him--on the same mental +and moral plane with him. + +"I am married," she said shortly. If she had thought she would resort to +parleying and evasions, she now had no intention of doing so. It seemed +inevitable that she should talk to Fectnor in his own language. + +"I don't care anything about your marriage," he said. "A bit of church +flummery. Use your brains, Sylvia. You know that couldn't make any +difference." + +"I'm not thinking about the flummery. That isn't it. It's the fact that I +love the man I married." + +"All very well and good. But you know you used to love me." + +"No, I never did." + +"Oh, yes you did. You just forget. At any rate, you was as much to me as +you could ever be to a husband. You know you can't drop me just because +it's convenient for you to take up with somebody else. You know that's not +the way I'm built." + +She had refused to use the chair he had shoved toward her. She stood +beside it a little defiantly. Now she looked into his eyes with a kind of +imperious reasonableness. "Whatever I was to you, Fectnor," she said, "I +became because I was forced into it." + +"I never forced you," he responded stoutly. + +"In one way, you didn't; but just the same ... you had both hands reached +out to seize me when I fell. You never tried to help me; you were always +digging the pitfall under my feet. You were forever holding out your hand +with money in it; and there was you on one side of me with your money, and +my father on the other with his never-ending talk about poverty and debts +and his fear of you--and you know you took pains to make him fear you--and +his saying always that it wouldn't make any difference in what people +thought of me, whether I stood out against you or...." Her glance shifted +and fell. There were some things she could not put into words. + +"That's book talk, Sylvia. Come out into the open. I know what the female +nature is. You're all alike. You all know when to lower your eyes and lift +your fan and back into a corner. That's the female's job, just as it's the +male's job to be bold and rough. But you all know to a hair how far to +carry that sort of thing. You always stop in plenty of time to get +caught." + +She looked at him curiously. "I suppose," she said after a pause, "that +roughly describes certain love-making processes. But it really wasn't +love-making between you and me, Fectnor. It was a kind of barter." + +His eyes seemed to snare hers relentlessly. "You're not doing yourself +justice, Sylvia," he said. "You're not one of the bartering kind. You'd +have killed me--you'd have killed yourself--before you'd have let me touch +you, if you hadn't liked me. You know that's a fact." + +The shadow of a frown darkened her brow. "There was a time when you had a +kind of fascination for me. The way you had of making other men seem +little and dumb, when you came in and spoke. You seemed so much alive. I +noticed once that you didn't count your change when you'd paid for some +drinks. That was the way in everything you did. You seemed lavish with +everything that was in you; you let the big things go and didn't worry +about the change. You were a big man in some ways, Fectnor. A girl needn't +have been ashamed of admiring you. But Fectnor ... I've come to see what a +low life it was I was leading. In cases like that, what the woman yields +is ... is of every possible importance to her, while the man parts only +with his money." + +He smote the table with his fist. "I'm glad you said that," he cried +triumphantly. "There's a lie in that, and I want to nail it. The man gives +only his money, you say. Do you understand what that means where a +hard-working devil is concerned? What has he got besides the few pennies +he earns? When he gives his money, isn't he giving his strength and his +youth? Isn't he giving his manhood? Isn't he giving the things that are +his for only a few years, and that he can't get back again? I'm not +talking about the dandies who have a lot of money they never earned. I +should think a woman with as much as one bone in her body would take a +shotgun to that sort whenever they came around. I'm talking about the +fellows that sweat for what they get. A lot of mollycoddles and virtuous +damn fools have built up that Sunday-school junk about the woman giving +everything, and the man giving nothing. But I want to tell you it's nip +and tuck as to who gives the most. A woman takes a man's money as if it +grew on bushes. Go and watch him earn it, if you want to know what his +part of the bargain is." + +She felt as if she were being crowded against a wall. She could not look +at him. She groped for a weapon--for any weapon--with which to fight him. +"That would sound a little more impressive, Fectnor," she said, "if I +didn't know what brought you to Eagle Pass just now, and how you sweat for +the pay you got." + +This was unfortunately said, for there was malice in it, and a measure of +injustice. He heard her calmly. + +"This election business is only a side-line of mine," he replied. "I enjoy +it. There's nothing like knowing you can make a lot of so-called men roll +over and play dead. If a man wants to find out where he stands, let him +get out and try to make a crowd do something. Let him try to pull any +prunes-and-prism stuff, either with his pocketbook or his opinions, and +see where he gets off at. No, Sylvia, you played the wrong card. Eleven +months out of the year I work like a nigger, and if you don't know it, +you'd better not say anything more about it." + +He clasped his hands about his knee and regarded her darkly, yet with a +kind of joyousness. There was no end of admiration in his glance, but of +kindness there was never a suggestion. + +She gathered new energy from that look in his eyes. After all, they had +been arguing about things which did not matter now. "Fectnor," she said, +"I'm sure there must be a good deal of justice in what you say. But I know +you're forgetting that when the man and the woman are through with youth +there is a reckoning which gives the man all the best of it. His +wrong-doing isn't stamped upon him. He is respected. He may be poor, but +he isn't shunned." + +"That's more of the same lie. Did you ever see a poor man--a really poor +man--who was respected? There may be two or three of the people who know +him best who will give him credit for certain things--if he denies himself +to pay a debt, or forfeits his rest to sit up with a sick neighbor. But +take the world as a whole, doesn't it ride over the man who's got nothing? +Isn't he dreaded like a plague? Isn't he a kill-joy? I don't care what a +woman's been, she's as well off. A few people will give her credit for the +good she does, and that's all a man can hope for, if he's been generous +enough or enough alive to let his money go. No, you can't build up any +fences, Sylvia. We're all in the same herd." + +She felt oppressed by the hardness, the relentlessness, of his words, his +manner. She could not respond to him. But she knew that everything this +man said, and everything he was, left out of the account all those +qualities which make for hope and aspirations and faith. + +Her glance, resting upon him as from a great distance, seemed to irritate +him. "After all, Sylvia," he said, "you're putting on an awful lot of silk +that don't belong to you. Suppose we say that you'd have kept away from me +if you hadn't been too much influenced. There are other things to be +remembered. Peterson, for example. Remember Peterson? I watched you and +him together a good bit. You'll never tell me you wasn't loose with him." + +Much of her strength and pride returned to her at this. Whatever the truth +was, she knew that Fectnor had no right to bring such a charge against +her. "Your language is very quaint at times," she said. A curve of disdain +hovered about her lips. "I'm not aware of being, or of ever having been, +loose in any way. I can't think where such a word originated." + +"You know what I mean well enough. And some of those young fellows--the +soldiers and railroaders--I don't suppose any of them have got anything on +you, either?" + +"They haven't, Fectnor!" she exclaimed hotly. She resolved to have nothing +more to say to him. She felt that his brutality gave her the right to have +done with him. And then her glance was arrested by his powerful hand, +where it lay on the table beside him. It was blunt-fingered and broad and +red, with the back covered by yellow hairs which extended down to the dabs +of finger-nails. + +He seemed to read her mind, and in answer he took up a heavy pewter cup +and held it toward her. For an instant he permitted her to scrutinize the +cup, and then his fingers closed. He opened his hand and the shapeless +mass of pewter fell to the floor. He threw his head back with the ecstasy +of perfect physical fitness. His laughter arose, almost hysterically. + +"Fectnor!" she cried, standing tense and white before him, "I think you're +all brute--just common, hopeless brute." + +He became perfectly serious; but presently he regarded her with a flicker +of humor in his eyes, she thought. "You didn't say that as if you meant +it, Sylvia," he declared. "You didn't say it as if you quite believed it. +But I'm going to show you that you're right. What we've been together, +Sylvia, you and I, we're going to continue to be until we both agree to +quit. That's what you may call justice. And so far I'm not agreeing to +quit." + +He came toward her then, and she perceived that his bearing had altered +completely. He seemed moved by some impulse stronger than himself--as if +it were quite outside himself. + +She felt that her heart had suddenly ceased to beat. A leopard crouching +before her on a limb could not have seemed more pitiless, more terrible. +She had sprung to the door opening into her father's room before he could +reach her. Her fingers shot the bolt and the door was open. And then she +knew she had made a fatal mistake in holding that long and quiet parley +with the beast that had trapped her. She had led her father, doubtless, to +believe that it was an amicable talk that had been going on behind the +closed door. She knew now that at the first instant of Fectnor's +appearance she should have given battle and cried for help. + +Now, looking into the adjoining room, while Fectnor's grip closed upon her +wrist, she saw the front door quietly close. Her father had gone out. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Sylvia climbed the hill in the dusk. + +A casual observer would have remarked that all was not right with her. +Beneath a calm exterior something brooded. You might have supposed that +some of the trivial things of existence had gone wrong: that a favorite +servant had left her, or that the dressmaker had failed to keep an +appointment. Sylvia was not an unschooled creature who would let down the +scroll of her life's story to be read by every idle eye. + +But the gods of the desert, if any such there be--the spirit of the yucca +and the cactus and the sage--must have known by the lines of that immobile +face, by the unseeing stare in those weary eyes, that some fundamental +change had come over the woman who passed along that road. Sylvia had +seemed almost like a happy child when she descended the hill an hour +before. It was a woman who fashioned a new philosophy of life who now +returned. + +It was her own father who had bade her come; it was the man she loved--for +whom she had meant to create her life anew--who had bade her go; and it +was one to whom she had never told an untruth, for whose pleasure she had +been beautiful and gay, who had destroyed her. + +She had not fully realized how beautiful a thing her new security had +been; how deeply in her nature the roots of a new hope, of a decent +orderliness had taken hold. But the transplanted blossom which had seemed +to thrive naturally under the fostering care of Harboro--as if it had +never bloomed elsewhere than in his heart--had been ruthlessly torn up +again. The seeming gain had been turned into a hideous loss. + +And so over that road where a woman with illusions had passed, a +philosopher who no longer dreamed returned. + +Harboro, from his seat on the balcony, saw her coming. And something which +surrounded her like an aura of evil startled him. He dropped his newspaper +to the floor and leaned forward, his pulse disturbed, his muscles tense. +As she drew nearer he arose with the thought of hurrying down-stairs to +meet her; and then it occurred to him that she would wish to see him +alone, away from the averted eyes of old Antonia, which saw everything. + +A little later he heard her coming up the stairs with heavy, measured +steps. And in that moment he warned himself to be calm, to discount the +nameless fears--surely baseless fears--which assailed him. + +She appeared in the doorway and stood, inert, looking at him as from a +great distance. + +"Well, Sylvia?" he said gently. He was seated now, and one arm was +stretched out over the arm of his chair invitingly. He tried to smile +calmly. + +She did not draw any nearer to him. Her face was almost expressionless, +save that her eyes seemed slowly to darken as she regarded him. And then +he saw that certain muscles in her face twitched, and that this tendency +swiftly strengthened. + +"Sylvia!" he exclaimed, alarmed. He arose and took a step toward her. + +She staggered toward him and rested her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes +were averted, and Harboro realized with a pang that she did not touch him +with the familiar touch which seemed to call to something within him to +respond, to make itself manifest. She was merely seeking for support such +as a wall or a gate might afford to one who is faint. + +He touched her face with his hand and brought it about so that he could +read her eyes; but this movement she resisted--not irritably, but +hopelessly. He slipped an arm around her yearningly, and then the storm +within her broke. + +He thought she must be suffocating. She gasped for breath, lifting her +chin high. She was shaken with sobs. She clasped his head in her hands and +placed her face against it--but the movement was despairing, not loving. + +He tried again to look into her eyes; and presently he discovered that +they were quite dry. It seemed she had lost the power to weep; yet her +sobs became rhythmic, even--like those of any woman who grieves deeply and +is still uncomforted. + +He held her tenderly and spoke her name over and over. The tears would +come soon, and when she had wept he could ask her to tell him what it was +that had wounded her. He was suffering cruelly; he was in despair. But he +admonished himself firmly to bear with her, to comfort her, to wait. + +And at last, as if indeed she had been leaning against a wall for support +until she could recover herself, she drew away from him. She was almost +calm again; but Harboro realized that she was no nearer to him than she +had been when first she had climbed the stairs and stood before him. + +He placed a firm hand on her shoulder and guided her to a chair. He sat +down and pulled her gently down to him. "Now, Sylvia!" he said with +firmness. + +She was kneeling beside him, her elbows on his knees, her face in her +hands. But the strange remoteness was still there. She would not look at +him. + +"Come!" he admonished. "I am waiting." + +She looked at him then; but she wore the expression of one who does not +understand. + +"Something has gone wrong," he said. "You see, I've not been impatient +with you. But you ought to tell me now." + +"You mean I ought to tell you what's gone wrong?" + +He was startled by the even, lifeless quality of her voice. "Of course!" + +"In just a word or two, I suppose?" + +"If you can." + +She knelt where she could look away toward the west--toward Mexico; and +she noted, with mild surprise, that a new moon hung low in the sky, +sinking slowly into the desert. It seemed to her that years had passed +since she had seen the moon--a full moon, swinging, at this hour of the +evening, in the eastern sky. + +"Come, Sylvia!" It was Harboro's urgent voice again. + +"If I only could!" she said, moving a little in token of her discomfort. + +"Why not?" + +"I mean, if any of us could ever say what it is that has gone wrong. +Everything has gone wrong. From the very beginning. And now you ask me: +'What's gone wrong?' just as you might ask, 'What time is it, Sylvia?' or, +'Who is it coming up the road?' I can't tell you what's gone wrong. If I +talked to you a week--a month--I couldn't tell you half of it. I don't +believe I ever could. I don't believe I know." + +These vagaries might have touched Harboro at another time; they might have +alarmed him. But for the moment wrath stirred in him. He arose almost +roughly. "Very well," he said, "I shall go to your father. I shall have +the facts." + +This angry reference to her father--or perhaps it was the roughness of his +withdrawal from her--affected her in a new way. + +"No, you must not do that!" she cried despairingly, and then the tears +came suddenly--the tears which had stubbornly refused to flow. + +"There," he said, instantly tender again, "you'll feel better soon. I +won't be impatient with you." + +But Sylvia's tears were only incidental to some lesser fear or grief. They +did not spring from the wrong she had suffered, or from the depths of her +nature, which had been dwarfed and darkened. She listlessly pulled a chair +into a better position and sat down where she need not look at Harboro. +"Give me a little time," she said. "You know women have moods, don't you?" +She tried to speak lightly. "If there is anything I can tell you, I +will--if you'll give me time." + +She had no intention of telling Harboro what had happened. The very +thought of such a course was monstrous. Nothing could be undone. She could +only make conditions just a little worse by talking. She realized heavily +that the thing which had happened was not a complete episode in itself; it +was only one chapter in a long story which had its beginnings in the first +days in Eagle Pass, and even further away. Back in the San Antonio days. +She could not give Harboro an intelligent statement of one chapter without +detailing a long, complicated synopsis of the chapters that went before. + +To be sure, she did not yet know the man she was dealing with--Harboro. +She was entirely misled by the passive manner in which he permitted her to +withdraw from him. + +"Yes, you shall have time," he said. "I only want you to know that I am +here to help you in any way I can." + +She remained silent so long that he became impatient again. "Did you find +your father very ill?" he hazarded. + +"My father? Oh! No ... I can hardly say. He seemed changed. Or perhaps I +only imagined that. Perhaps he really is very ill." + +Another long silence ensued. Harboro was searching in a thousand dark +places for the cause of her abnormal condition. There were no guide-posts. +He did not know Sylvia's father. He knew nothing about the life she had +led with him. He might be a cruel monster who had abused her--or he might +be an unfortunate, unhappy creature, the very sight of whom would wound +the heart of a sensitive woman. + +He leaned forward and took her arm and drew her hand into his. "I'm +waiting, Sylvia," he said. + +She turned toward him with a sudden passion of sorrow. "It was you who +required me to go!" she cried. "If only you hadn't asked me to go!" + +"I thought we were both doing what was right and kind. I'm sorry if it has +proved that we were mistaken. But surely you do not blame me?" + +"Blame you? No ... the word hadn't occurred to me. I'm afraid I don't +understand our language very well. Who could ever have thought of such a +meaningless word as 'blame'? You might think little creatures--ants, or +the silly locusts that sing in the heat--might have need of such a word. +You wouldn't _blame_ an apple for being deformed, would you?--or the hawk +for killing the dove? We are what we are--that's all. I don't blame any +one." + +The bewildered Harboro leaned forward, his hands on his knees. "We are +what we make ourselves, Sylvia. We do what we permit ourselves to do. +Don't lose sight of that fact. Don't lose sight of the fact, either, that +we are here, man and wife, to help each other. I'm waiting, Sylvia, for +you to tell me what has gone wrong." + +All that she grasped of what he said she would have denied passionately; +but the iron in his nature, now manifesting itself again, she did not +understand and she stood in awe of it. + +"Give me until to-morrow," she pleaded. "I think perhaps I'm ill to-night. +You know how you imagine things sometimes? Give me until to-morrow, until +I can see more clearly. Perhaps it won't seem anything at all by +to-morrow." + +And Harboro, pondering darkly, consented to question her no more that +night. + +Later he lay by her side, a host of indefinable fears keeping him company. +He could not sleep. He did not even remotely guess the nature of her +trouble, but he knew instinctively that the very foundations of her being +had been disturbed. + +Once, toward morning, she began to cry piteously. "No, oh no!" The words +were repeated in anguish until Harboro, in despair, seized her in his +arms. "What is it, Sylvia?" he cried. "No one shall harm you!" + +He held her on his breast and soothed her, his own face harrowed with +pain. And he noticed that she withdrew into herself again, and seemed +remote, a stranger to him. + +Then she fell into a sound sleep and breathed evenly for hours. The dawn +broke and a wan light filled the room. Harboro saw that her face was the +face of Sylvia again--the face of a happy child, as it seemed to him. In +her sleep she reached out for him contentedly and found his throat, and +her fingers rested upon it with little, intermittent, loving pressures. + +Finally she awoke. She awoke, but Harboro's crowning torture came when he +saw the expression in her eyes. The horror of one who tumbles into a +bottomless abyss was in them. But now--thank God!--she drew herself to him +passionately and wept in his arms. The day had brought back to her the +capacity to think, to compare the fine edifice she and Harboro had built +with the wreck which a cruel beast had wrought. She sobbed her strength +away on Harboro's breast. + +And when the sun arose she looked into her husband's gravely steadfast +eyes, and knew that she must tell the truth. She knew that there was +nothing else for her to do. She spared her father, inventing little +falsehoods on his behalf; herself she spared, confessing no fault of her +own. But the truth, as to how on the night before Fectnor had trapped her +and wronged her in her father's house, she told. She knew that Harboro +would never have permitted her to rest if she had not told him; she knew +that she must have gone mad if she had not unbosomed herself to this man +who was as the only tree in the desert of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +She was puzzled by the manner in which he heard her to the end. She +expected an outburst; and she found only that after one moment, during +which his body became rigid and a look of incredulous horror settled in +his eyes, a deadly quiet enveloped him. He did not try to comfort her--and +certainly there was no evidence that he blamed her. He asked her a few +questions when she had finished. He was not seeking to implicate her--she +felt certain of that. He merely wanted to be quite sure of his ground. + +Then he got up and began dressing, deliberately and quietly. It did not +occur to her that he was not putting on the clothes he usually wore on +Sunday, but this deviation from a rule would not have seemed significant +to her even if she had noticed it. She closed her eyes and pondered. In +Sylvia's world men did not calmly ignore injury. They became violent, even +when violence could not possibly mend matters. Had Harboro decided to +accept the inevitable, the irremediable, without a word? Her first +thought, last night, had been that she would probably lose Harboro, too, +together with her peace of mind. He would rush madly at Fectnor, and he +would be killed. Was he the sort of man who would place discretion first +and pocket an insult? + +Oddly, the fear that he would attack Fectnor changed to a fear that he did +not intend to do so. She could not bear to think of the man she loved as +the sort of man who will not fight, given such provocation as Harboro +had. + +She opened her eyes to look at him, to measure him anew. But he was no +longer in the room. + +Then her fear for him returned with redoubled force. Quiet men were +sometimes the most desperate, the most unswerving, she realized. Perhaps +he had gone even now to find Fectnor. + +The thought terrified her. She sprang from the bed and began dressing with +feverish haste. She would overtake him and plead with him not to go. If +necessary, she would tell him other things about herself--about the +reasons she had given Fectnor, long ago, to believe that she was not a +woman to be respected. Harboro would not forgive her, in that event. He +would leave her. But he would not go to his death. It seemed to her quite +clear that the only unforgivable sin she could commit would be to permit +Harboro to die for her sake. + +She hurried down into the dining-room. Ah, Harboro was there! And again +she was puzzled by his placidity. He was standing at a window, with his +back to her, his hands clasped behind him. He turned when he heard her. +"It promises to be another warm day," he said pleasantly. Then he turned +and looked out through the kitchen door as if hinting to Antonia that +breakfast might now be served. + +He ate his grapes and poached eggs and drank his coffee in silence. He +seemed unaware that Sylvia was regarding him with troubled eyes. + +When he arose from the table he turned toward the hall. As if by an +afterthought, he called back, "I'm going to be busy for a little while, +Sylvia," and she heard him going up the stairs. + +His tone had conveyed a hint that he did not wish to be disturbed, she +thought, but she could not help being uncomfortably curious. What was +there to be done on a Sunday morning that could compare in importance with +the obviously necessary task of helping her to forget the injuries she had +suffered? It was not his way to turn away from her when she needed him. + +She could not understand his conduct at all. She was wounded; and then she +began to think more directly, more clearly. Harboro was not putting this +thing away from him. In his way he was facing it. But how? + +She noiselessly climbed the stairs and opened the door of their bedroom. + +With great exactitude of movement he was cleaning a pistol. He had taken +it apart and just now a cylinder of burnished steel was in his hand. + +He frowned when he heard her. "I am sorry you came up, Sylvia," he said. +"I had an idea I'd given you to understand...." + +She hurriedly withdrew, closing the door behind her. She felt an +inexplicable elation as she went down the stairs; yet she felt that she +stood face to face with calamity, too. Her man was a fighting man, +then--only he was not a madman. He was the sort of fighter who did not +lose his head. But she could not picture him as a man skilled in the +brutal work of killing. He was too deliberate, too scrupulous, for that +sort of work. And Fectnor was neither deliberate nor scrupulous. He was +the kind of man who would be intently watchful for an advantage, and who +would be elated as he seized that advantage. + +... She would persuade Harboro not to go, after all. The thing was not +known. It would never be known. Her searching woman's logic brought to her +the realization that the only way to publish the facts broadcast was for +Harboro to seek a quarrel with Fectnor. He would have to give his +reasons. + +But when Harboro came down the stairs she knew instantly that she could +not stop him from going. That quiet look was not unreadable now. It meant +unswerving determination. + +He called to her, his hand outstretched; and when she went to him he +kissed her. His voice was gentle and unshaken, in quite the habitual way, +when he said: "_I shall be back in a little while_." + +She clasped her hands and looked at him imploringly. "Don't go," she +pleaded. + +"Ah, but I must go." + +She touched his cheeks with her hands. "Don't go!" she repeated. "Nothing +can be undone." + +"But a man's job isn't to undo things--it's to do them." + +She held her face high as if the waters were engulfing her. "Don't go!" +she said again; and her eyes were swimming, so that at the last she did +not see him go, and did not know that he had kept that look of placid +courage to the end. + +It was a little early for the usual Sunday morning loiterers to be about +as Harboro entered the town. For a moment he believed there was no one +about at all. The little town, with its main street and its secondary +thoroughfares bordered by low structures, might have been regarded as the +habitation of lesser creatures than human beings, as it stood there musing +after the departed night, in the midst of limitless wastes of sand. That +group of houses might have been likened to some kind of larger birds, +hugging the earth in trepidation, ready to take flight at any moment. + +Yet Harboro had been mistaken in supposing that no one was as yet astir. +Two men stood out in the street, at the entrance to the Maverick bar, near +a hitching-post to which a small horse carrying a big saddle was tethered. +One of the men was about to mount. As Harboro approached he untied his +horse and lifted one foot to its stirrup, and stood an instant longer to +finish what he was saying, or perhaps to hear the other out. + +The other man was in his shirt-sleeves. He carried a blue-serge sack-coat +over his arm. He stood facing Harboro as the latter approached; and the +expression in his eyes seemed to change in a peculiar way at sight of the +big, swarthy man who stepped off the sidewalk, down into the street, and +seemed to be headed directly toward him. + +The two men had never met before; but Harboro, taking in that compact, +muscular figure, found himself musing with assurance: "That is Fectnor." + +Nothing in his face or carriage betrayed his purpose, and the man with the +blue-serge garment on his arm kept his ground complacently. The man with +the horse mounted and rode away. + +Harboro advanced easily until he was within arm's length of the other man +in the street. "You're Fectnor, aren't you?" he asked. + +"I am," replied the other crisply. + +Harboro regarded him searchingly. At length he remarked: "Fectnor, I see +you've got a gun on you." + +"I have," was the steely response. Fectnor's narrow blue eyes became, +suddenly, the most alert thing about a body which was all alertness. + +"So have I," said Harboro. + +The other's narrow eyes seemed to twinkle. His response sounded like: "The +L you say!" + +"Yes," said Harboro. He added: "My wife was the woman you trapped in +Little's house last night." + +Fectnor's mind went swiftly to the weapon in his holster; and something +more than his mind, surely, since Harboro knew. Yet the man's hand had +barely moved. However, he casually threw the coat he carried over his left +arm, leaving his right hand free. If he had thought of reaching for his +weapon he had probably realized that he must first get out of reach of +Harboro's arm. "You might put that a little different," he said lightly. +"You might say--the woman I met in Little's house." + +Harboro took in the insinuated insult. He remained unmoved. He could see +that Fectnor was not a coward, no matter what else he was; and he realized +that this man would seek to enrage him further, so that his eyes would be +blinded, so that his hands would tremble. + +"I'm going to kill you, Fectnor," Harboro continued. "But I'm going to +give you a chance for your life. I want you to turn and walk down the +street twelve paces. Then turn and draw. I'll not draw until you turn +unless you try to play a trick on me. Your best chance lies in your doing +just as I tell you to." + +Fectnor regarded him shrewdly with his peering, merry eyes. He rather +liked Harboro, so far as first impressions went. Yet his lips were set in +a straight line. "All right," he drawled amiably. His voice was pitched +high--almost to a falsetto. + +"Remember, you'd better not draw until you've turned around," advised +Harboro. "You'll be more likely to get your bearings right that way. You +see, I want to give you an even break. If I'd wanted to murder you I could +have slipped up from behind. You see that, of course." + +"Clear as a whistle," said Fectnor. He gave Harboro a final searching look +and then turned about unflinchingly. He proceeded a few steps, his hands +held before him as if he were practising a crude cake-walk. The serge +garment depended from one arm. He was thinking with lightning-like +rapidity. Harboro had courage enough--that he could tell--but he didn't +behave like a man who knew very many tricks with a gun. Nevertheless he, +Fectnor, would be under a disadvantage in this test of skill which was +being forced upon him. When he turned he would need just a second to get a +perfect balance, to be quite sure of his footing, to get his bearings. And +that one second might make all the difference in the outcome of the +affair. Moreover, there was one other point in Harboro's favor, Fectnor +realized. His was the stronger determination of the two. Fectnor had not +flinched, but he knew that his heart was not in this fight. He could see +that Harboro was a good deal of a man. A fool, perhaps, but still a decent +fellow. + +These were conclusions which had come in flashes, while Fectnor took less +than half a dozen steps. Then he turned his head partly, and flung back +almost amiably: "Wait until I get rid of my coat!" + +"Drop it!" cried Harboro sharply. + +But Fectnor plainly had another idea. He turned a little out of his +course, still with his hands well in front of him. It was evident, then, +that he meant to fling his coat on the sidewalk. + +Harboro held him with eyes which were keen as knives, yet still a little +dubious. He was puzzled by the man's good humor; he was watchful for +sudden stratagems. His own hands were at his sides, the right within a few +inches of his hip. + +Yet, after all, he was unprepared for what happened. Fectnor leaned +forward as if to deposit his coat on the sidewalk. Then he seemed to +stumble, and in two swift leaps he had gained the inner side of the walk +and had darted into the inset of the saloon. He was out of sight in a +flash. + +As if by some feat in legerdemain Harboro's weapon was in his hand; but it +was a hand that trembled slightly. He had allowed Fectnor to gain an +advantage. + +He stared fixedly at that place where Fectnor had disappeared. His right +hand was held in the position of a runner's, and the burnished steel of +the weapon in it caught the light of the sun. He had acquired the trick of +firing while his weapon was being elevated--not as he lowered it; with a +movement like the pointing of a finger. He was ready for Fectnor, who +would doubtless try to take him by surprise. + +Then he realized that the level rays of the sun made the whole entrance to +the saloon, with its several facets of glass, a thing of dazzling +opaqueness. He could not see Fectnor until the latter stepped forth from +his ambush; yet it seemed probable that Fectnor might be able to see him +easily enough through the glass barricade behind which he had taken +refuge. He might expect to hear the report of a weapon and the crash of +glass at any instant. + +At this realization he had an ugly sensation at the roots of his hair--as +if his scalp had gone to sleep. Yet he could only stand and wait. It would +be madness to advance. + +So he stood, almost single-mindedly. He had a disagreeable duty to +perform, and he must perform it. Yet the lesser cells of his brain spoke +to him, too, and he realized that he must present a shocking sight to +law-abiding, happy people, if any should appear. He was glad that the +street was still deserted, and that he might reasonably hope to be +unseen. + +Then his hand shot forward with the fierceness of a tiger's claw: there +had been a movement in the saloon entrance. Only by the fraction of a +second was the finger on the trigger stayed. + +It was not Fectnor who appeared. Dunwoodie stepped into sight casually and +looked in Harboro's direction. The expression of amused curiosity in his +eyes swiftly gave place to almost comical amazement when he took in that +spasmodic movement of Harboro's. + +"What's up?" he inquired. He approached Harboro leisurely. + +"Stand aside, Dunwoodie," commanded Harboro harshly. + +"Well, wait a minute," insisted Dunwoodie. "Calm yourself, man. I want to +talk to you. Fectnor's not in the saloon. He went on through and out the +back way." + +Harboro wheeled with an almost despairing expression in his eyes. He +seemed to look at nothing, now--like a bird-dog that senses the nearness +of the invisible quarry. The thought came to him: "Fectnor may appear at +any point, behind me!" The man might have run back along the line of +buildings, seeking his own place to emerge again. + +But Dunwoodie went on reassuringly. He had guessed the thought in +Harboro's mind. "No, he's quite gone. I watched him go. He's probably in +Mexico by this time--or well on his way, at least." + +Harboro drew a deep breath. "You watched him go?" + +"When he came into the saloon, like a rock out of a sling, he stopped just +long enough to grin, and fling out this--to me--'If you want to see a +funny sight, go out front.' Fectnor never did like me, anyway. Then he +scuttled back and out. I followed to see what was the matter. He made +straight for the bridge road. He was sprinting. He's gone." + +Harboro's gun had disappeared. He was frowning; and then he realized that +Dunwoodie was looking at him with a quizzical expression. + +He made no explanation, however. + +"I must be getting along home," he said shortly. He was thinking of +Sylvia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Dunwoodie was not given to talkativeness; moreover, he was a considerate +man, and he respected Harboro. Therefore it may be doubted if he ever said +anything about that unexplained drama which occurred on the main street of +Eagle Pass on a Sunday morning, before the town was astir. But there was +the bartender at the Maverick--and besides, it would scarcely have been +possible for any man to do what Harboro had done without being seen by +numbers of persons looking out upon the street through discreetly closed +windows. + +At any rate, there was talk in the town. By sundown everybody knew there +had been trouble between Harboro and Fectnor, and men who dropped into the +Maverick for a game of high-five or poker had their attention called to an +unclaimed blue-serge coat hanging from the ice-box. + +"He got away with his skin," was the way the bartender put the case, "but +he left his coat." + +There was a voice from one of the card-tables: "Well, any man that gets +Fectnor's coat is no slouch." + +There were a good many expressions of undisguised wonder at Fectnor's +behavior; and nobody could have guessed that perhaps some sediment of +manhood which had remained after all the other decent standards had +disappeared had convinced Fectnor that he did not want to kill a man whom +he had injured so greatly. And from the popular attitude toward Fectnor's +conduct there grew a greatly increased respect for Harboro. + +That, indeed, was the main outcome of the episode, so far as the town as a +whole was concerned. Harboro became a somewhat looming figure. But with +Sylvia ... well, with Sylvia it was different. + +Of course Sylvia was connected with the affair, and in only one way. She +was the sort of woman who might be expected to get her husband into +trouble, and Fectnor was the kind of man who might easily appeal to her +imagination. This was the common verdict; and the town concluded that it +was an interesting affair--the more so because nearly all the details had +to be left to the imagination. + +As for Sylvia, the first direct result of her husband's gun-play was that +a week or two after the affair happened, she had a caller--the wife of +Jesus Mendoza. + +She had not had any callers since her marriage. Socially she had been +entirely unrecognized. The social stratum represented by the Mesquite +Club, and that lower stratum identified with church "socials" and similar +affairs, did not know of Sylvia's existence--had decided definitely never +to know of her existence after she had walked down the aisle of the church +to the strains of the Lohengrin march. Nevertheless, there had been that +trip to the church, and the playing of the march; and this fact placed +Sylvia considerably above certain obscure women in the town who were not +under public condemnation, but whose status was even more hopeless--who +were regarded as entirely negligible. + +The wife of Jesus Mendoza was one of these. She was an American woman, +married to a renegade Mexican who was notoriously evil. I have referred to +Mendoza as a man who went about partly concealed in his own cloud of +cigarette smoke, who looked at nothing in particular and who was an active +politician of a sort. He had his place in the male activities of the town; +but you wouldn't have known he had a wife from anything there was in his +conversation or in his public appearances. Nobody remembered ever to have +seen the two together. She remained indoors in all sorts of weather save +when she had marketing to do, and then she looked neither to left nor +right. Her face was like a mask. She had been an unfortunate creature when +Mendoza married her; and she was perhaps thankful to have even a low-caste +Mexican for a husband, and a shelter, and money enough to pay the +household expenses. + +That her life could not have been entirely complete, even from her own way +of thinking, was evidenced by the fact that at last she came to call on +Sylvia in the house on the Quemado Road. + +Sylvia received her with reticence and with a knowing look. She was not +pleased that Mrs. Mendoza had decided to call. She realized just what her +own status was in the eyes of this woman, who had assumed that she might +be a welcome visitor. + +But Sylvia's outlook upon life, as has been seen, was distorted in many +ways; and she was destined to realize that she must form new conclusions +as to this woman who had come to see her in her loneliness. + +Mrs. Mendoza was tactful and kind. She assumed nothing, save that Sylvia +was not very thoroughly acquainted in the town, and that as she had had +her own house now for a month or two, she would expect people to be +neighborly. She discussed the difficulties of housekeeping so far from the +source of supplies. She was able, incidentally, to give Sylvia a number of +valuable hints touching these difficulties. She discussed the subject of +Mexican help without self-consciousness. During her call it developed that +she was fond of music--that in fact she was (or had been) a musician. And +for the first time since Sylvia's marriage there was music on the piano up +in the boudoir. + +Mrs. Mendoza played with a passionateness which was quite out of keeping +with her mask-like expression. It was like finding a pearl in an oyster, +hearing her at the piano. She played certain airs from _Fra Diavolo_ so +skilfully that she seemed to be letting bandits into the house; and when +she saw that Sylvia was following with deep appreciation she passed on to +the _Tower Scene_, giving to the minor chords a quality of massiveness. +Her expression changed oddly. There was color in her cheeks and a stancher +adjustment of the lines of her face. She suggested a good woman struggling +through flames to achieve safety. When she played from _Il Trovatore_ you +did not think of a conservatory, but of a prison. + +She stopped after a time and the color swiftly receded from her cheeks. +"I'm afraid I've been rather in earnest," she said apologetically. "I +haven't played on a good piano for quite a long time." She added, as if +her remark might seem an appeal for pity, "the climate here injures a +piano in a year or so. The fine sand, you know." + +"You must come and use mine whenever you will," said Sylvia heartily. "I +love it, though I've never cared to play myself." + +"I wonder why?" + +"Ah, I could scarcely explain. I've been too busy living. It has always +seemed to me that music and pictures and books were for people who had +been caught in an eddy and couldn't go on with the stream." She realized +the tactlessness of this immediately, and added: "That's just a silly +fancy. What I should have said, of course, is that I haven't the talent." + +"Don't spoil it," remonstrated the other woman thoughtfully. "But you must +remember that few of us can always go on with the stream." + +"Sometimes you get caught in the whirlpools," said Sylvia, as they were +going down the stairs, "and then you can't stop, even if you'd like to." + +I doubt if either woman derived a great deal of benefit from this visit. +They might have become helpful friends under happier conditions; but +neither had anything to offer the other save the white logic of untoward +circumstances and defeat. + +The wife of Jesus Mendoza did not know Sylvia well enough to perceive that +a certain blitheness and faith had abandoned her, never to return. +Nevertheless, the fact of her visit has its place in this chronicle, since +it had a cruel bearing upon a day which still lay in Sylvia's future. + +Sylvia's caller went home; and, as it chanced, she never called again at +the house on the Quemado Road. As for Sylvia, she did not speak to Harboro +of her visitor. From his point of view, she thought, there would be +nothing to be proud of in the fact that Mrs. Mendoza had called. And so +Harboro was destined to go on to the end without knowing that there was +any such person as the wife of Jesus Mendoza. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART IV + +THE HORSE WITH THE GOLDEN DAPPLES + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Two events which had a bearing upon Sylvia's destiny occurred at about +this time. I am not sure which came first: the invitation to a celebration +out at the Quemado settlement, or the arrival on the border of Runyon, the +mounted inspector. + +The coming of Runyon caused a distinct ripple in the social circles of the +two border towns. He was well connected, it was known: he was a cousin to +a congressman in the San Angelo district, and he had a brother in the +army. + +He was a sort of frontier Apollo; a man in his prime, of striking build--a +dashing fellow. He had the physical strength, combined with neatness of +lines, which characterized Buffalo Bill in his younger days. He was a +blond of the desert type, with a shapely mustache the color of flax, with +a ruddy skin finely tanned by sun and wind, and with deep blue eyes which +flashed and sparkled under his flaxen brows. He was a manly appearing +fellow, though there was a glamour about him which made prosaic folk +suspicious. + +He rode a dun horse with golden dapples--a slim, proud thing which suited +Runyon in every detail. When you saw him mounted you thought of a parade; +you wondered where the rest of it was--the supernumerary complement. + +The man was also characterized by the male contingent of the border as a +"dresser." He was always immaculately clad, despite the exposure to which +his work subjected him. He seemed to have an artist's sense of color +effects. Everything he put on was not only faultless in itself, but it +seemed specially designed and made for him. In the set of his sombrero and +the style of his spurs he knew how to suggest rakishness without quite +achieving it; and when he permitted his spirited horse to give way to its +wayward or playful moods there was something just a little sinister in his +mirth. He looked as much at home in conventional clothes as in his +inspector's outfit, and he immediately became a social favorite on both +sides of the river. It developed that he could sing quite amazingly. His +voice was high-pitched, but there was power and fire in it. He sang easily +and he loved to sing. His songs were the light-opera favorites, the fame +of which reached the border from New York and London, and even Vienna. And +when there was difficulty about getting the accompaniments played he took +his place unaffectedly at the piano and played them himself. + +His name began to appear regularly in the Eagle Pass _Guide_ in connection +with social events; and he was not merely mentioned as "among those +present," but there was always something about his skill as a musician. + +Of course Sylvia was destined to see him sooner or later, though she +stayed at home with almost morbid fidelity to a resolution she had made. +He rode out the Quemado Road one matchless December day when the very air +would have seemed sufficient to produce flowers without calling the +ungracious desert into service. Sylvia sat in her boudoir by an open +window and watched him approach. She immediately guessed that it was +Runyon. The remarkable manner in which he had conquered the town had made +him an occasional subject for comment between Sylvia and Harboro, and he +had described the man to her. + +Sylvia thought that the rider and his horse, with the sun on the man's +flashing blue eyes and the horse's golden dapples, constituted the +prettiest picture she had ever seen. Never before had she observed a man +who sat his horse with such an air of gallantry. + +And as she regarded him appraisingly he glanced up at her, and there was +the slightest indication of pleased surprise in his glance. She withdrew +from the window; but when she reckoned that he was well past the house she +looked after him. He was looking back, and their eyes met again. + +It is decidedly contrary to my conviction that either Sylvia or Runyon +consciously paved the way for future mischief when they indulged in that +second glance at each other. He was the sort of man who might have +attracted a second glance anywhere, and he would have been a poor fellow +if he had not considered Sylvia a sight worth turning his head for. + +Nevertheless, Sylvia regretted that second glance. It had an effect upon +her heart which was far from soothing; and when she realized that her +heart seemed suddenly to hurt her, her conscience followed suit and hurt +her too. She closed the window righteously; though she was careful not to +do so until she felt sure that Runyon was beyond sight and hearing. + +And then there came to Harboro the invitation out to the Quemado. The +belle of the settlement, a Mexican girl famed for her goodness and beauty, +was to be married to one of the Wayne brothers, ranchers on an immense +scale. The older of the two brothers was a conventional fellow enough, +with an American wife and a large family; but the younger brother was +known far and wide as a good-natured, pleasure-pursuing man who counted +every individual in Maverick County, Mexican and American alike, his +friend. It seemed that he was planning to settle down now, and he had won +the heart of a girl who seemed destined to make an admirable mate for one +of his nature-loving type, though his brother had mildly opposed the idea +of a Mexican girl as a member of the family. + +The wedding was to be in the fashion of the bride's race. It was to be an +affair of some twenty-four hours' duration, counting the dancing and +feasting, and it was to take place in a sort of stockade which served the +Quemado settlement in lieu of a town hall or a public building of any +kind. + +Invitations had been practically unlimited in number. There was to be +accommodation for hundreds. Many musicians had been engaged, and there was +to be a mountain of viands, a flood of beverages. It was to be the sort of +affair--democratic and broadly hospitable--which any honest man might have +enjoyed for an hour or so, at least; and it was in that category of events +which drew sightseers from a considerable distance. Doubtless there would +be casual guests from Spofford (the nearest railroad point on the Southern +Pacific) and from Piedras Negras, as well as from Eagle Pass and the +remote corners of Maverick County. + +Harboro's invitation had come to him through one of his fellow employees +in the railroad offices--a Mexican who had spent four years in an American +university, and who was universally respected for his urbane manner and +kind heart. Valdez, his name was. He had heartily invited Harboro to go to +the wedding with him as his guest; and when he saw traces of some sort of +difficulty in Harboro's manner, he suggested, with the ready _simpatia_ of +his race, that doubtless there was a Mrs. Harboro also, and that he hoped +Mrs. Harboro, too, would honor him by accepting his invitation. He +promised that the affair would be enjoyable; that it would afford an +interesting study of a people whose social customs still included certain +pleasures which dated back to the Cortez invasion, as well as many of the +latest American diversions. + +Harboro tactfully sought for more definite details; and when he gathered +that the affair would be too immense to be at all formal--that there would +be introductions only so far as separate groups of persons were concerned, +and that guests would be expected to come and go with perfect freedom, he +accepted the invitation gratefully. He had not forgotten the slight which +the two towns had put upon him and Sylvia, and he was not willing to +subject himself to snubs from people who had behaved badly. But he +realized that it was necessary for Sylvia to see people, to get away from +the house occasionally, to know other society than his own. + +In truth, Harboro had been very carefully taking account of Sylvia's +needs. It seemed to him that she had not been really herself since that +Sunday morning when he had had to place his life in jeopardy. In a way, +she seemed to love him more passionately than ever before; but not so +light-heartedly, so gladly. Some elfin quality in her nature was gone, and +Harboro would gladly have brought it back again. She had listless moods; +and sometimes as they sat together he surprised a strange look in her +eyes. She seemed to be very far away from him; and he had on these +occasions the dark thought that even the substance of her body was gone, +too--that if he should touch her she would vanish in a cloud of dust, like +that woman in _Archibald Malmaison_, after she had remained behind the +secret panel, undiscovered, for a generation. + +And so Harboro decided that he and Sylvia would go to the big affair at +the Quemado. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +There was an atmosphere of happiness and bustle in the house when the +night of the outing came. Harboro easily managed a half-holiday (it was a +Saturday), and he had ample time to make careful selection of horses for +Sylvia and himself at an Eagle Pass stable. He would have preferred a +carriage, but Sylvia had assumed that they would ride, and she plainly +preferred that mode of travel. She had been an excellent horsewoman in the +old San Antonio days. + +Old Antonia was drawn out of her almost trance-like introspection. The +young senora was excited, as a child might have been, at the prospect of a +long ride through the chaparral, and she must not be disappointed. She had +fashioned a riding-habit and a very charming little jacket, and to these +the old woman made an addition of her own--a wonderful _rebozo_. She +brought it forth from among her own possessions and offered it +affectionately. + +"But shall I need it?" asked Sylvia. + +Very surely she might, she was assured. She would not wish to dance in her +riding costume, certainly. And it might turn chilly after nightfall. She +would find that other young women had such garments to protect them. And +this particular _rebozo_ was quite wonderful. She pointed out its +wonderful qualities. It was of so delicate a weave that it might have been +thrust into a man's pocket; yet, unfolded, it proved to be of the +dimensions of a blanket. And there was warmth in it. She folded it neatly +and explained how it might be tied to the pommel of the saddle. It would +not be in the way. + +Sylvia affected much gratitude for such kindness and foresight, though she +thought it unlikely that she would need a wrap of any sort. + +There was an early supper, Antonia contributing a quite unprecedented +alacrity; and then there was a cheerful call from the road. The horses had +been brought. + +Sylvia ran out to inspect them; and Harboro, following, was not a little +amazed to perceive how important a matter she considered the sort of +horses he had engaged. Horses were not a mere medium of travel to Sylvia; +they were persons in the drama, and it was highly important that they +should fit into the various romantic demands of the occasion. Harboro had +stipulated that they should be safe horses, of good appearance; and the +boy from the stable, who had brought them, regarded them with beaming eyes +when Harboro examined them. The boy evidently looked at the affair much as +Sylvia did--as if the selection of the horse was far more important than +the determining of a destination. + +"They seem to be all right," ventured Harboro. + +"Yes, they are very good horses," agreed Sylvia; but she sighed a little. + +Then there was the clatter of hoofs down the road, and Valdez appeared. +He, too, bestrode a decidedly prosaic-appearing animal; but when Harboro +exclaimed: "Ah, it's Valdez!" Sylvia became more interested in the man +than in the horse. It would be a pity to have as companion on a long ride +a man without merits. She was not very favorably impressed by Valdez. The +man acknowledged his introduction to her too casually. There were no +swift, confidential messages in his eyes. He seemed to be there for the +purpose of devoting himself to Harboro, not to her. + +Antonia came out to be sure that the cherished _rebozo_ was tied to the +pommel of Sylvia's saddle, and then Harboro and Sylvia went back into the +house to get into their riding things. When they returned Harboro lifted +her to her saddle with a lack of skill which brought a frown to her brows. +But if she regretted the absence of certain established formalities in +this performance, she yielded herself immediately to the ecstasy of being +in the saddle. She easily assumed a pretty and natural attitude which made +Harboro marvel at her. + +She watched when it came time for him to mount. The horse moved uneasily, +as horses have done since the beginning of time beneath the touch of +unpractised riders. Harboro gathered the reins in too firm a grip, and the +animal tried to pull away from him. + +The boy from the stable sprang forward. "Let me hold his head," he said, +with a too obvious intimation that Harboro needed help. + +"Never mind," said Harboro crisply; and he achieved his place in the +saddle by sheer force rather than by skill. Neither did he fall into an +easy position; though under ordinary circumstances this fact would not +have been noted. But Sylvia swiftly recalled the picture of a dun horse +with golden dapples, and of a rider whose very attitude in the saddle was +like a hymn of praise. And again she sighed. + +She had seen Runyon often since the afternoon on which he had made his +first appearance on the Quemado Road. Seemingly, his duties took him out +that way often; and he never passed without glancing toward Sylvia's +window--and looking back again after he had passed. Nor had he often found +that place by the window vacant. In truth, it was one of Sylvia's +pleasures in those days to watch Runyon ride by; and the afternoon seemed +unduly filled with tedium when he failed to appear. + + * * * * * + +The little picture in front of Harboro's house dissolved. The three riders +turned their horses' heads to the north and rode away. Antonia stood at +the gate an instant and looked after them; but she did not derive any +pleasure from the sight. It was not a very gallant-appearing group. Sylvia +was riding between the two men, and all three were moving away in silence, +as if under constraint. The stable-boy went somewhat dispiritedly back +along the way he had come. + +Sylvia was the first of the three riders to find herself. There were +certain things which made the springs of gladness within her stir. The +road was perfect. It stretched, smooth and white, away into the dusk. The +air was clear as on a mountain top, with just enough crispness to create +energy. Of wind there was scarcely a breath. + +She was not pleased at all with Harboro's friend. He had assumed the +attitude of a deferential guide, and his remarks were almost entirely +addressed to Harboro. But she was not to be put out by so small a part of +the night's programme. After all, Valdez was not planning to return with +them, and they were likely to have the ride back by themselves. Valdez, +she had been informed, was to be a sort of best friend to the family of +the bride, and it would be his duty to remain for the next day's +ceremonies--the feasting and the marriage itself. + +The dusk deepened, and a new light began to glow over the desert. A waxing +moon, half-full, rode near the zenith; and as the light of day receded it +took on a surprising brilliance. The road seemed in some strange way to be +more clearly defined than under the light of day. It became a winding path +to happiness. It began to beckon; to whisper of the delights of swift +races, of coquetries. It bade the riders laugh aloud and fling their cares +away. Occasionally it rose or dipped; and then through little valleys +between sand-dunes, or from low summits, the waters of the Rio Grande were +visible away to the left. A mist was clinging to the river, making more +mysterious its undisturbed progress through the desert. + +After a long time the silence of the road was broken by the tinkle of a +small bell, and Valdez pulled his horse in and looked sharply away into a +mesquite-clad depression. Of old the road had been haunted by night-riders +who were willing enough to ride away with a traveller's possessions, +leaving the traveller staring sightlessly toward the sky. But Valdez +thought of no menaces in connection with the border folk. He was a +kind-hearted fellow, to whom all men were friends. + +"Travellers, or a party camped for the night," he said interestedly, as if +the presence of other human beings must be welcomed gladly. He rode out +toward the sound of that tinkling bell, and in a moment he was guided more +certainly by the blaze of a camp-fire. + +Harboro and Sylvia followed, and presently they were quite near to two +quaint old carts, heaped high with mesquite fagots destined for the +humbler hearths of Eagle Pass. Donkeys were tethered near by, and two +Mexicans, quite old and docile in appearance, came forward to greet the +intruders. + +Valdez exchanged greetings with them. He knew something of the loneliness +of these people's lives, and the only religion he had was a belief that +one must be friendly to travellers. He produced a flask and invited the +old men to drink; and each did so with much nice formality and thoroughly +comprehensive toasts to Harboro and Sylvia. + +Then Valdez replaced his flask in his pocket. + +"God go with you!" he called as he went away, and "God go with you!" came +back the placid, kindly echo. + +And Sylvia realized suddenly that it was a very good thing indeed to be +riding along that golden road through the desert. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Harboro became aware that some one was staring almost insolently at +Sylvia. + +They were seated on one of the benches disposed around the side of the +stockade, and there was a great deal of noise all about them. In the open +space of the stockade a score or more of young men and women were dancing +to the music of violins and flutes and 'cellos. Nearly all who were not +dancing were talking or laughing. People who did not see one another for +months at a time were meeting and expressing their pleasure in staccato +showers of words. + +There were other noises in the near-by corral, in which Valdez had put +their horses away with the other horses; and in still another place the +work of barbecuing large quantities of meat had begun. A pleasant odor +from the fire and the meat floated fitfully over the stockade. There was +still an almost singular absence of wind, and the night was warm for a +midwinter night. + +Valdez was remaining for the time being with his guests, and he was making +friendly comments upon the scene. + +"It's chiefly the young people who are dancing now," he observed. "But +you'll notice men and women of all ages around in the seats. They will +become intoxicated with the joy of it all--and maybe with other +things--later in the night, and then the dancing will begin in earnest." + +For the moment an old type of fandango was being danced--a dance not +wholly unlike a quadrille, in that it admitted a number of persons to the +set and afforded opportunity for certain individual exhibitions of skill. + +And then Harboro, glancing beyond Valdez, observed that a man of mature +years--a Mexican--was regarding Sylvia fixedly. He could not help +believing that there was something of insolence, too, in the man's gaze. + +He lowered his voice and spoke to Valdez: "That man sitting by himself +over there, the fourth--the fifth--from us. Do you know him?" + +Valdez turned casually and seemed to be taking in the general scene. He +brought his glance back to Harboro without seeming to have noticed +anything in particular. + +"That's one of your most--er--conspicuous citizens," he said with a smile. +"His name is Mendoza--Jesus Mendoza. I'm surprised you've never met him." + +"I never have," replied Harboro. He got up and took a new position so that +he sat between Sylvia and Mendoza, cutting off the view of her. + +She had caught the name. She glanced interestedly at the man called Jesus +Mendoza. She could not remember ever to have seen him before; but she was +curious to know something about the man whose wife had been kind to her, +and whose life seemed somehow tragically lonely. + +Mendoza made no sign of recognition of Harboro's displeasure. He arose +with a purposeless air and went farther along the stockade wall. Sylvia's +glance followed him. She had not taken in the fact that the man's +presence, or anything that he had done, had annoyed Harboro. She was +wondering what kind of man it was who had captivated and held the woman +who had filled her boudoir with passionate music, and who knew how to keep +an expressionless mask in place so skilfully that no one on the border +really knew her. + +The fandango came to an end, and the smooth earth which constituted the +floor of the enclosure was vacated for an instant. Then the musicians +began a favorite Mexican waltz, and there was a scurrying of young men and +women for places. There was an eager movement along the rows of seats by +young fellows who sought partners for the waltz. Custom permitted any man +to seek any disengaged woman and invite her to dance with him. + +"We ought to find Wayne and pay our respects," suggested Valdez. "He will +want to meet Mrs. Harboro, too, of course. Shall we look for him?" + +They skirted the dancing space, leaving Sylvia with the assurance that +they would soon return. Harboro was noting, with a relief which he could +scarcely understand, that he was among strangers. The people of Eagle Pass +were almost wholly unrepresented as yet. The few Americans present seemed +to be casual sightseers or ranchmen neighbors of the bridegroom. + +Left alone, Sylvia looked eagerly and a little wistfully toward the +dancers. Her muscles were yielding to the call of the violins. She was +being caught by the spirit of the occasion. Here she would have been +wholly in her element but for a vague fear that Harboro would not like her +to yield unrestrainedly to the prevailing mood. She wished some one would +ask her to dance. The waltz was wonderful, and there was plenty of room. + +And then she looked up as a figure paused before her, and felt a thrill of +interest as she met the steady, inquiring gaze of Jesus Mendoza. + +"Mrs. Harboro, I believe?" he asked. The voice was musical and the English +was perfect. He shrewdly read the glance she gave him and then held out +his hand. + +"I heard you spoken of as Mr. Mendoza," she replied. "Your wife has been +very kind to me." She did not offer to make room for him on the seat +beside her. She had been relieved of her riding-habit, and she held +Antonia's _rebozo_ across her knees. She had decided not to use it just +yet. The night was still comfortably warm and she did not like to cover up +the pretty Chinese silk frock she was wearing. But as Mendoza glanced down +at her she placed the _rebozo_ over one arm as if she expected to rise. + +Mendoza must have noted the movement. A gleam of satisfaction shone in his +inscrutable eyes--as when a current of air removes some of the ash from +above a live coal. "Will you dance with me?" he asked. "When the young +fellows overlook so charming a partner, surely an old man may become +bold." + +She arose with warm responsiveness, yet with undefined misgivings. He had +an arm about her firmly in an instant, and when they had caught step with +the music he held her close to him. He was an excellent dancer. Sylvia was +instantly transported away from the world of petty discretions into a +realm of faultless harmony, of singing rhythm. + +Her color was heightened, her eyes were sparking, when they returned to +their place. "It was nice," she said, releasing her partner's arm and +drawing apart. A purple-and-gold Chinese lantern glowed just above her +head. And then she realized that Harboro and Valdez had returned. There +was a stranger with them. + +Harboro regarded her with unmistakable disapproval; but only for an +instant. When something of the childlike glory of her face departed under +the severe expression of his eyes, he relented immediately. "Are you +enjoying yourself, Sylvia?" he inquired gently, and then: "I want you to +meet our host." + +Wayne shook hands with her heartily. "You're a very kind lady to get right +into our merrymaking," he said, "though I hope you'll save a dance for me +a little later." + +They all went to see the bride-to-be then. She was hidden away in one of +the _adobe_ houses of the settlement near by, receiving congratulations +from friends. She was a dark little creature, nicely demure and almost +boisterously joyous by turns. + +But later Sylvia danced with Wayne, and he thought of a dozen, a score, of +young fellows who would wish to meet her. He brought them singly and in +groups, and they all asked to dance with her. She was immediately popular. +Happiness radiated from her, and she added to the warmth of every heart +that came within her influence. + +Harboro watched her with wonder. She was like a flame; but he saw her as a +sacred flame. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Sylvia was resting. She had not danced to her heart's content, but she had +become weary, and she threw Antonia's _rebozo_ over her shoulders and +leaned back in her seat. For the moment Harboro and Valdez and Wayne were +grouped near her, standing. The girl Wayne was to marry the next day had +made her formal appearance now and was the centre of attention. She was +dancing with one after another, equally gracious toward all. + +Then Sylvia heard Valdez and Wayne cry out simultaneously: + +"Runyon!" + +And then both men hurried away toward the entrance to the stockade. + +Sylvia drew her wrap more snugly about her. "Runyon!" she repeated to +herself. She closed her eyes as if she were pondering--or recuperating. +And she knew that from the beginning she had hoped that Runyon would +appear. + +"It's that inspector fellow," explained Harboro, without looking at her. +His tone was not at all contemptuous, though there was a note of amusement +in it. "He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking +to." Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. +They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and +good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he +carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never +was there a man to whom nature had been kinder--nor any man who was more +graciously proud of what nature had done for him. For the occasion he was +dressed in a suit of fawn-colored corduroy which fitted him as the rind +fits the apple. + +"Just a little too much so," Harboro was thinking, ambiguously enough, +certainly, as Runyon was brought before him and Sylvia. Runyon +acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful urbanity which was quite +without discrimination as between Harboro and Sylvia. Quite impartially he +bestowed a flashing smile upon both the man and the woman. And Harboro +began vaguely to understand. Runyon was popular, not because he was a +particularly good fellow, but because he was so supremely cheerful. And he +seemed entirely harmless, despite the glamour of him. After all, he was +not a mere male coquette. He was in love with the world, with life. + +Wayne was reproaching him for not having come sooner. He should have been +there for the beginning, he said. + +And Runyon's response was characteristic enough, perhaps: "Everything is +always beginning." + +There was gay laughter at this, though the meaning of it must have been +obscure to all save Sylvia. The words sounded like a song to her. It was a +song she had wished to sing herself. But she was reflecting, despite her +joy in the saying: "No, everything is always ending." + +Runyon was borne away like a conqueror. He mingled with this group and +that. His presence was like a stimulant. His musical voice penetrated +everywhere; his laughter arose now and again. He did not look back toward +Sylvia. She had the strange feeling that even yet they had not met--they +had not met, yet had known each other always. He ignored her, she felt, as +one ignores the best friend, the oldest associate, on the ground that no +explanations are necessary, no misunderstanding possible. + +Harboro sat down beside Sylvia. When he spoke there was a note of easy +raillery in his voice. "They're getting him to sing," he said, and Sylvia, +bringing her thoughts back from immeasurable distances, realized that the +dancing space had been cleared, and that the musicians had stopped playing +and were engaged in a low-spoken conference with Runyon. He nodded toward +them approvingly and then stepped out into the open, a little distance +from them. + +The very sky listened; the desert became dumb. The orchestra played a +prelude and then Runyon began to sing. The words came clear and resonant: + + "By the blue Alsatian mountains + Dwelt a maiden young and fair...." + +Runyon sang marvellously. Although he was accustomed to the confines of +drawing-rooms with low ceilings, he seemed quite at home on this earthen +floor of the desert, with the moon sinking regretfully beyond the top of +the stockade. He was perfectly at ease. His hands hung so naturally by his +sides that they seemed invisible. + + "But the blue Alsatian mountains + Seem to watch and wait alway." + +The song of a woman alone, and then another, "A Warrior Bold," and then +"Alice, Where Art Thou?" And finally "Juanita." They were songs his +audience would appreciate. And all those four songs of tragedy he sang +without banishing the beaming smile from his eyes. He might have been +relating the woes of marionettes. + +He passed from the scene to the sound of clapping hands, and when he +returned almost immediately after that agreeable theatrical exit, he began +to dance. He danced with the bride-to-be, and then with the bridesmaids. +He found obscure girls who seemed to have been forgotten--who might be +said to have had no existence before he found them--and danced with them +with natural gallantry. He came finally to Sylvia, and she drifted away +with him, her hand resting on his shoulder like a kiss. + +"I thought you would never come to me," she said in a lifeless voice. + +"You knew I would," was the response. + +Her lips said nothing more. But her heart was beating against him; it was +speaking to him with clarity, with eloquence. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART V + +A WIND FROM THE NORTH + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Harboro and Sylvia were taking leave of Wayne and Valdez. Their horses had +been brought and they were in their saddles, their horses' heads already +in the direction of Eagle Pass. Valdez was adding final instructions +touching the road. + +"If you're not quite sure of the way I'll get some one to ride in with +you," said Wayne; but Harboro would not listen to this. + +"I'll not lose the way," he declared; though there remained in his mind a +slight dubiousness on this point. The moon would be down before the ride +was finished, and there were not a few roads leading away from the main +thoroughfare. + +Then, much to Harboro's surprise, Runyon appeared, riding away from the +corral on his beautiful dun horse. He overheard the conference between +Harboro and the others, and he made himself one of the group with pleasant +familiarity. + +"Ah, Harboro, must you be going, too?" he inquired genially; and then: "If +you don't mind, I'll ride with you. It's rather a lonely road at this +hour, and I've an idea I know the way better than you." + +Harboro's eyes certainly brightened with relief. "It's good of you to +offer," he declared heartily. "By all means, ride with us." He turned +toward Sylvia, plainly expecting her to second the invitation. + +"It will be much pleasanter," she said; though it seemed to Harboro that +her words lacked heartiness. She was busying herself with the little +package at her pommel--old Antonia's _rebozo_. + +"And you must all remember that there's one more latch-string out here at +the Quemado," said Wayne, "whenever you feel inclined to ride this way." + +They were off then. The sound of violins and the shuffle of feet became +faint, and the last gay voice died in the distance. Only now and then, +when the horses' feet fell in unison, there drifted after them the note of +a violin--like a wind at night in an old casement. And then the three +riders were presently aware of being quite alone on a windless waste, with +a sentinel yucca standing on a distant height here and there between them +and the descending moon, and distant groups of mesquite wreathing +themselves in the silver mist of early morning. It had been a little past +midnight when they left the Quemado. + +Sylvia, riding between the two men, was so obviously under some sort of +constraint that Harboro sought to arouse her. "I'm afraid you overtaxed +yourself, Sylvia," he suggested. "It's all been pleasant, but +rather--heroic." It was an effort for him to speak lightly and cheerfully. +The long ride out to the Quemado was a thing to which he was not +accustomed, and the merrymaking had seemed to him quite monotonous after +an hour or two. Even the midnight supper had not seemed a particularly gay +thing to him. He was not quite a youth any more, and he had never been +young, it seemed to him, in the way in which these desert folk were young. +Joy seemed to them a kind of intoxication--as if it were not to be +indulged in save at long intervals. + +"I didn't overtax myself," replied Sylvia. "The ending of things is never +very cheerful. I suppose that's what I feel just now--as if, at the end, +things don't seem quite worth while, after all." + +Harboro held to his point. "You _are_ tired," he insisted. + +Runyon interposed cheerfully. "And there are always the beginnings," he +said. "We're just beginning a new day and a fine ride." He looked at +Harboro as if inviting support and added, in a lower tone: "And I'd like +to think we were beginning a pleasant acquaintance." + +Harboro nodded and his dark eyes beamed with pleasure. It had seemed to +him that this final clause was the obvious thing for Runyon to say, and he +had waited to see if he would say it. He did not suppose that he and +Sylvia would see a great deal of Runyon in Eagle Pass, where they were not +invited to entertainments of any kind, but there might be occasional +excursions into the country, and Runyon seemed to be invited everywhere. + +But Sylvia refused to respond to this. The pagan in her nature reasserted +itself, and she felt resentful of Runyon's affable attitude toward +Harboro. The attraction which she and Runyon exerted toward each other was +not a thing to be brought within the scope of a conventionally friendly +relationship. Its essence was of the things furtive and forbidden. It +should be fought savagely and kept within bounds, even if it could never +be conquered, or it should be acknowledged and given way to in secret. Two +were company and three a crowd in this case. She might have derived a +great deal of tumultuous joy from Runyon's friendship for her if it could +have been manifested in secret, but she could feel only a sense of +duplicity and shame if his friendship included Harboro, too. The wolf does +not curry favor with the sheep-dog when it hungers for a lamb. Such was +her creed. In brief, Sylvia had received her training in none of the +social schools. She was a daughter of the desert--a bit of that jetsam +which the Rio Grande leaves upon its arid banks as it journeys stealthily +to the sea. + +They were riding along in silence half an hour later, their horses at a +walk, when the stillness of the night was rudely shattered by the sound of +iron wheels grinding on stone, and in an instant a carriage could be seen +ascending a branch road which arose out of a near-by _arroyo_. + +The riders checked their horses and waited: not from curiosity, but in +response to the prompting of a neighborly instinct. Travellers in the +desert are never strangers to one another. + +The approaching carriage proved to be an impressively elegant affair, the +locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the +range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on +the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a +kingly robe sat alone on the back seat. Then to Harboro, sitting high with +the last rays of the moon touching his face, came the hearty hail: +"Harboro! How are you, Harboro?" + +It was the voice of the General Manager. + +Harboro turned his horse so that he stood alongside the open carriage. He +leaned over the wheel and shook hands with the General Manager. The +encounter seemed to him to add the one desirable touch of familiarity to +the night ride. He explained his presence away out on the Quemado Road; +and the General Manager also explained. He had been spending the evening +with friends on a near-by ranch. His family were remaining for the night, +but it had been necessary for him to return to Piedras Negras. + +Harboro looked about for his companions, intending to introduce them. But +they were a little too far away to be included comfortably in such a +ceremony. For some reason Runyon had chosen to ride on a few steps. + +"How many are you?" inquired the General Manager, with a note of +purposefulness in his voice. "Three? That's good. You get in with me. Tie +your horse behind. Two can ride abreast more comfortably than three, and +you and I can talk. I've never felt so lonesome in my life." He moved over +to one side of the seat, and looked back as if he expected to help in +getting Harboro's horse tied behind the carriage. His invitation did not +seem at all like a command, but it did seem to imply that a refusal would +be out of the question. + +The arrangement seemed quite simple and desirable to Harboro. He was not a +practised horseman, and he was beginning to feel the effect of saddle +strain. Moreover, he had realized a dozen times during the past hour that +two could ride easily side by side on the desert road, while a third rider +was continually getting in the way. + +He called to Runyon cheerfully: "You two go on ahead--I'm going to ride +the rest of the way in." + +"Fine!" called back Runyon. To Runyon everything always seemed precisely +ideal--or at least such was the impression he created. + +It became a little cavalcade now, the riders leading the way. Riders and +carriage kept close together for a time. Sylvia remained silent, but she +felt the presence of her companion as a deliciously palpable thing. +Harboro and the General Manager were talking, Harboro's heavy tones +alternating at unequal intervals with the crisp, penetrating voice of the +General Manager--a voice dry with years, but vital nevertheless. + +After a time the horses in the carriage broke into a rhythmic trot. In the +darkness Runyon's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "We'll have to have a +little canter, or we'll get run over," he said gayly, and he and Sylvia +gave rein to their horses. + +In a very few minutes they had put a distance of more than a hundred yards +between them and the occupants of the carriage. + +"This is more like it!" exclaimed Runyon exultantly. Tone and words alike +implied all too strongly his satisfaction at being rid of Harboro--and +Sylvia perversely resented the disloyalty of it, the implication of +intrigue carried on behind a mask. + +And then she forgot her scruples. The boy who had chosen her horse for her +had known what he was doing, after all. The animal galloped with a dashing +yet easy movement which was delightful. She became exhilarated by a number +of things. The freedom of movement, the occasional touch of her knee +against Runyon's, the mysterious vagueness of the road, now that the moon +had gone down. + +Perhaps they both forgot themselves for a time, and then Sylvia checked +her horse with a laugh in which there was a sound of dismay. "We ought to +wait for them to catch up," she said. + +Runyon was all solicitude immediately. "We seem to have outdistanced them +completely," he said. They turned their horses about so that they faced +the north. "I can't even hear them," he added. Then, with the +irrepressible optimism which was his outstanding quality, he added +laughingly: "They'll be along in a few minutes. But wasn't it a fine +ride?" + +She had not framed an answer to this question when her mind was diverted +swiftly into another channel. She held her head high and her body became +slightly rigid. She glanced apprehensively at Runyon and realized that he, +too, was listening intently. + +A faint roar which seemed to come from nowhere fell on their ears. The +darkness swiftly deepened, so that the man and the woman were almost +invisible to each other. That sinister roaring sound came closer, as if +mighty waters were rolling toward them far away. The northern sky became +black, as if a sable curtain had been let down. + +And then upon Sylvia's startled senses the first breath of the norther +broke. The little winds, running ahead as an advance-guard of the tempest, +flung themselves upon her and caught at her hair and her riding-habit. +They chilled her. + +"A norther!" she exclaimed, and Runyon called back through the whistle of +the winds: "It's coming!" + +His voice had the quality of a battle-cry, joined to the shouts of the +descending storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Fortunately, Runyon knew what to do in that hour of earth's desolation and +his own and Sylvia's peril. + +He sprang from his horse and drew his bridle-rein over his arm; and then +he laid a firm hand on the bridle of Sylvia's horse. His own animal he +could trust in such an emergency; but the other had seemed to lose in +height and he knew that it was trembling. It might make a bolt for it at +any moment. + +"Keep your seat," he shouted to Sylvia, and she realized that he was +leading both horses away from the road. She caught glimpses of his +wraith-like figure as the whirling dust-cloud that enveloped them thinned +occasionally. + +She knew that he had found a clump of mesquite after a faltering progress +of perhaps fifty yards. Their progress was checked, then, and she knew he +was at the hitching straps, and that he was tethering the animals to the +trees. The powdered dust and sand were stinging her face, and the cold +wind was chilling her; yet she felt a strange elation as she realized that +she was here alone with Runyon, and that he was managing the situation +with deftness and assurance. + +She felt his hand groping for her then, and, leaning forward, she was +borne to the ground. He guided her to a little depression and made her +understand that she was to sit down. He had removed his saddle-blanket and +spread it on the earth, forming a rug for her. "The _rebozo_?" he cried in +her ear. + +"It's fastened to the pommel," she called back. + +She could neither see nor hear him; but soon he was touching her on the +shoulders. The _rebozo_ was flung out on the wind so that it unfolded, and +he was spreading it about her. + +She caught his hand and drew him close so that she could make herself +heard. "There's room under it for two," she said. She did not release his +hand until he had sat down by her. Together they drew the _rebozo_ about +them like a little tent. + +Immediately they were transformed into two sheltered and undismayed Arabs. +The _rebozo_ was pinioned behind them and under their feet. The finest +dust could not penetrate its warp and woof. The wind was as a mighty hand, +intent upon bearing them to earth, but it could not harm them. + +Sylvia heard Runyon's musical laugh. He bent his head close to hers. +"We're all right now," he said. + +He had his arm across her shoulder and was drawing her close. "It's going +to be cold," he said, as if in explanation. He seemed as joyous as a +boy--as innocent as a boy. She inclined her head until it rested on his +shoulder, so that both occupied little more than the space of one. The +storm made this intimacy seem almost natural; it made it advantageous, +too. + +And so the infinite sands swarmed over them, and the norther shrieked in +their ears, and the earth's blackness swallowed them up until they seemed +alone as a man and a woman never had been alone before. + +The _rebozo_ sagged about them at intervals, weighted down with the dust; +but again it rippled like a sail when an eccentric gust swept away the +accumulated sediment. + +The desert was a thing of blank darkness. A protected torch would have +been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary +death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the +frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted +southward from the north star. + +Runyon's hand travelled soothingly from Sylvia's shoulder to her cheek. He +held her to him with a tender, eloquent pressure. He was the man, whose +duty it was to protect; and she was the woman, in need of protection. + +And Sylvia thought darkly of the ingenuities of Destiny which set at +naught the petty steps which the proprieties have taken--as if the gods +were never so diverted as when they were setting the stage for tragedy, or +as if the struggles and defeats of all humankind were to them but a proper +comedy. + +But Runyon was thinking how rare a thing it is for a man and a woman to be +quite alone in the world; how the walls of houses listen, and windows are +as eyes which look in as well as out; how highways forever hold their +malicious gossips to note the movements of every pair who do not walk +sedately; how you may mount the stairway of a strange house--and encounter +one who knows you at the top, and who laughs in his sleeve; how you may +emerge from the house in which you have felt safe from espionage--only to +encounter a familiar talebearer at the door. + +But here indeed were he and Sylvia alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Before the next spring came two entirely irreconcilable discoveries were +made in Eagle Pass. + +The first of these was made by certain cronies of the town who found their +beer flat if there was not a bit of gossip to go with it, and it was to +the effect that the affair between Sylvia and Runyon was sure to end +disastrously if it did not immediately end otherwise. + +The other discovery was made by Harboro, and it was to the effect that +Sylvia had at last blossomed out as a perfectly ideal wife. + +A certain listlessness had fallen from her like a shadow. Late in the +winter--it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought +it must have been--a change had come over her. There was a glad +tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer +given to dark utterances which he could not understand. She was devoted to +him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion--studying his needs and moods +alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor was +gone, but that, of course, was natural. Harboro did not know the phrases +of old Antonia or he would have said: "It is the time of embers." She was +softly solicitous for him; still a little wistful at times, to be sure; +but then that was the natural Sylvia. It was the quality which made her +more wonderful than any other woman in the world. + +And Sylvia? Sylvia had found a new avenue of escape from that tedium which +the Sylvias of the world have never been able to endure. + +Not long after that ride to the Quemado a horse had been brought to her +front gate during a forenoon when Harboro was over the river at work. +Unassisted she had mounted it and ridden away out the Quemado Road. A mile +out she had turned toward the Rio Grande, and had kept to an indistinct +trail until she came to a hidden _adobe_ hut, presided over by an ancient +Mexican. + +To this isolated place had come, too, Runyon--Runyon, whose dappled horse +had been left hidden in the mesquite down by the river, where the man's +duties lay. + +And here, in undisturbed seclusion, they had continued that intimacy which +had begun on the night of the norther. They were like two children, +forbidden the companionship of each other, who find something particularly +delicious in an unguessed rendezvous. All that is delightful in a +temporary escape from the sense of responsibility was theirs. Their +encounters were as gay and light as that of two poppies in the sun, flung +together by a friendly breeze. They were not conscious of wronging any +one--not more than a little, at least--though the ancient genius of the +place, a Mexican who had lost an eye in a jealous fight in his youth, used +to shake his head sombrely when he went away from his hut, leaving them +alone; and there was anxiety in the glance of that one remaining eye as he +kept a lookout over the trail, that his two guests might not be taken by +surprise. + +Sometimes they remained in the hut throughout the entire noon-hour, and on +these occasions their finely discreet and taciturn old host placed food +before them. Goat's milk was brought from an earthenware vessel having its +place on a wooden hook under the eaves of the house; and there was a +delicious stew of dried goat's flesh, served with a sauce which contained +just a faint flavor of peppers and garlic and herbs. And there was _pan_, +as delicate as wafers, and coffee. + +Time and again, throughout the winter, the same horse made its appearance +at Sylvia's gate at the same hour, and Sylvia mounted and rode away out +the Quemado Road and disappeared, returning early in the afternoon. + +If you had asked old Antonia about these movements of her mistress she +would have said: "Does not the senora need the air?" And she would have +added: "She is young." And finally she would have said: "I know nothing." + +It is a matter of knowledge that occasionally Sylvia would meet the boy +from the stable when he arrived at the gate and instruct him gently to +take the horse away, as she would not require it that day; and I am not +sure she was not trying still to fight the battle which she had already +lost; but this, of course, is mere surmise. + +And then a little cog in the machine slipped. + +A ranchman who lived out on the north road happened to be in Eagle Pass +one evening as Harboro was passing through the town on his way home from +work. The ranchman's remark was entirely innocent, but rather unfortunate. +"A very excellent horsewoman, Mrs. Harboro," he remarked, among other +things. + +Harboro did not understand. + +"I met her riding out the road this forenoon," explained the ranchman. + +"Oh, yes!" said Harboro. "Yes, she enjoys riding. I'm sorry, on her +account, that I haven't more liking for it myself." + +He went on up the hill, pondering. It was strange that Sylvia had not told +him that she meant to go for a ride. She usually went into minute details +touching her outings. + +He expected her to mention the matter when he got home, but she did not do +so. She seemed disposed not to confide in him throughout the entire +evening, and finally he remarked with an air of suddenly remembering: "And +so you went riding to-day?" + +She frowned and lowered her eyes. She seemed to be trying to remember. +"Why, yes," she said, after a moment's silence. "Yes, I felt rather dull +this morning. You know I enjoy riding." + +"I know you do," he responded cordially. "I'd like you to go often, if +you'll be careful not to take any chances." He smiled at the recollection +of the outcome of that ride of theirs to the Quemado, and of the +excitement with which they compared experiences when they got back home. +Sylvia and Runyon had made a run for it and had got home before the worst +of it came, she had said. But Harboro and the General Manager had waited +until the storm had spent itself, both sitting in the carriage with their +handkerchiefs pressed to their nostrils, and their coats drawn up about +their heads. He remembered, too, how the dust-fog had lingered in the air +until well into the next day, like a ghost which could not be laid. + +He brought himself back from the recollection of that night. "If you like, +I'll have the horse sent every day--or, better still, you shall have a +horse of your own." + +"No," replied Sylvia, "I might not care to go often." She had let her hair +down and was brushing it thoughtfully. "The things which are ordered for +you in advance are always half spoiled," she added. "It's better to think +of things all of a sudden, and do them." + +He looked at her in perplexity. That wasn't his way, certainly; but then +she was still occasionally something of an enigma to him. He tried to +dismiss the matter from his mind. He was provoked that it came back again +and again, as if there were something extraordinary about it, something +mysterious. "She only went for a ride," he said to himself late at night, +as if he were defending her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +A month later Harboro came home one afternoon to find an envelope +addressed to him on the table in the front hall. + +He was glad afterward that Sylvia was engaged with Antonia in the +dining-room, and did not have a chance to observe him as he examined the +thing which that envelope contained. + +It was a statement from one of the stables of the town, and it set forth +the fact that Harboro was indebted to the stable for horse-hire. There +were items, showing that on seven occasions during the past month a horse +had been placed at the disposal of Mrs. Harboro. + +Harboro was almost foolishly bewildered. Sylvia had gone riding seven +times during the month, and she had not even mentioned the matter to him! +Clearly here was a mystery. Her days were not sufficiently full of events +to make seven outings a matter of little consequence to her. She was not +given to reticence, even touching very little things. She had some reason +for not wishing him to know of these movements of hers. + +But this conclusion was absurd, of course. She would understand that the +bill for services rendered would eventually come to him. He was relieved +when that conclusion came to him. No, she was not seeking to make a +mystery out of the matter. Still, the question recurred: Why had she +avoided even the most casual mention of these outings? + +He replaced the statement in the envelope thoughtfully and put it away in +his pocket. He was trying to banish the look of dark introspection from +his eyes when Sylvia came in from the kitchen and gave a little cry of joy +at sight of him. She _was_ happy at the sight of him--Harboro knew it. Yet +the cloud did not lift from his brow as he drew her to him and kissed her +slowly. She was keeping a secret from him. The conclusion was +inescapable. + +His impulse was to face the thing frankly, affectionately. He had only to +ask her to explain and the thing would be cleared up. But for the first +time he found it difficult to be frank with her. If the thing he felt was +not a sense of injury, it was at least a sense of mystery: of resentment, +too. He could not deny that he felt resentful. At the foundation of his +consciousness there was, perhaps, the belief and the hope that she would +explain voluntarily. He felt that something precious would be saved to him +if she confided in him without prompting, without urging. If he waited, +perhaps she would do so. His sense of delicacy forbade him to inquire +needlessly into her personal affairs. Surely she was being actuated by +some good reason. That she was committed to an evil course was a suspicion +which he would have rejected as monstrous. Such a suspicion did not occur +to him. + +It did not occur to him until the next day, when a bolt fell. + +He received another communication from the stable. It was an apology for +an error that had been made. The stableman found that he had no account +against Mr. Harboro, but that one which should have been made out against +Mr. Runyon had been sent to him by mistake. + +Quite illogically, perhaps, Harboro jumped to the conclusion that the +service had really been rendered to Sylvia, as the original statement had +said, and that for some obscure reason it was to be charged against +Runyon. But even now it was not a light that he saw. Rather, he was +enveloped in darkness. He heard the envelope crackle in his clinched hand. +He turned and climbed the stairs heavily, so that he need not encounter +Sylvia until he had had time to think, until he could understand. + +Sylvia was taking rides, and Runyon was paying for them. That was to say, +Runyon was the moving factor in the arrangement. Therefore, Runyon was +deriving a pleasure from these rides of Sylvia's. How? Why, he must be +riding with her. They must be meeting by secret appointment. + +Harboro shook his head fiercely, like a bull that is being tortured and +bewildered by the matadors. No, no! That wasn't the way the matter was to +be explained. That could indicate only one thing--a thing that was +impossible. + +He began at the beginning again. The whole thing had been an error. Sylvia +had been rendered no services at all. Runyon had engaged a horse for his +own use, and the bill had simply been sent to the wrong place. That was +the rational explanation. It was a clear and sufficient explanation. + +Harboro held his head high, as if his problem had been solved. He held +himself erect, as if a burden had been removed. He had been almost at the +point of making a fool of himself, he reflected. Reason asserted itself +victoriously. But something which speaks in a softer, more insistent voice +than reason kept whispering to him: "Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and +Sylvia!" + +He faced her almost gayly at supper. He had resolved to play the role of a +happy man with whom all is well. But old Antonia looked at him darkly. Her +old woman's sense told her that he was acting a part, and that he was +overacting it. From the depths of the kitchen she regarded him as he sat +at the table. She lifted her eyes like one who hears a signal-cry when he +said casually: + +"Have you gone riding any more since that other time, Sylvia?" + +Sylvia hesitated. "'That other time'" she repeated vaguely.... "Oh, yes, +once since then--once or twice. Why?" + +"I believe you haven't mentioned going." + +"Haven't I? It doesn't seem a very important thing. I suppose I've thought +you wouldn't be interested. I don't believe you and I look at a +horseback-ride alike. I think perhaps you regard it as quite an event." + +He pondered that deliberately. "You're right," he said. "And ... about +paying for the horse. I'm afraid your allowance isn't liberal enough to +cover such things. I must increase it next month. Have you been paying out +of your own pocket?" + +"Yes--yes, of course. It amounts to very little." + +His sombre glance travelled across the table to her. She was looking at +her plate. She had the appearance of a child encountering a small obstacle +in the way of a coveted pleasure. There was neither guilt nor alarm in her +bearing, but only an irksome discomfort. + +But old Antonia withdrew farther within the kitchen. She took her place +under a picture of the Virgin and murmured a little prayer. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART VI + +THE GUEST-CHAMBER + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +It was remarked in the offices of the Mexican International Railroad about +this time that something had gone wrong with Harboro. He made mistakes in +his work. He answered questions at random--or he did not answer them at +all. He passed people in the office and on the street without seeing them. +But worse than all this, he was to be observed occasionally staring darkly +into the faces of his associates, as if he would read something that had +been concealed from him. He came into one room or another abruptly, as if +he expected to hear his name spoken. + +His associates spoke of his strange behavior--being careful only to wait +until he had closed his desk for the day. They were men of different minds +from Harboro's. He considered their social positions matters which +concerned them only; but they had duly noted the fact that he had been +taken up in high places and then dropped without ceremony. They knew of +his marriage. Certain rumors touching it had reached them from the +American side. + +They were rather thrilled at the prospect of a denouement to the story of +Harboro's eccentricity. They used no harsher word than that. They liked +him and they would have deplored anything in the nature of a misfortune +overtaking him. But human beings are all very much alike in one +respect--they find life a tedious thing as a rule and they derive a +stimulus from the tale of downfall, even of their friends. They are not +pleased that such things happen; they are merely interested, and they +welcome the break in the monotony of events. + +As for Harboro, he was a far more deeply changed man than they suspected. +He was making a heroic effort in those days to maintain a normal bearing. +It was only the little interstices of forgetfulness which enabled any one +to read even a part of what was taking place in his thoughts. + +He seemed unchanged to Sylvia, save that he admitted being tired or having +a headache, when she sought to enliven him, to draw him up to her own +plane of merriment. He was reminding himself every hour of the night and +day that he must make no irretrievable blunder, that he must do nothing to +injure his wife needlessly. Appearances were against her, but possibly +that was all. + +Yet revelations were being made to him. Facts were arraying themselves and +marching before him for review. Suspicion was pounding at him like a body +blow that is repeated accurately and relentlessly in the same vulnerable +spot. + +Why had Sylvia prevented him from knowing anything about her home life? +Why had she kept him and her father apart? Why had Eagle Pass ceased to +know him, immediately after his marriage? And Peterson, that day they had +gone across the river together--why had Peterson behaved so clownishly, +following his familiar greeting of Sylvia? Peterson hadn't behaved like +himself at all. And why had she been so reluctant to tell him about the +thing that had happened in her father's house? Was that the course an +innocent woman would have pursued? + +What was the explanation of these things? Was the world cruel by choice to +a girl against whom nothing more serious could be charged than that she +was obscure and poor? + +These reflections seemed to rob Harboro of the very marrow in his bones. +He would have fought uncomplainingly to the end against injustice. He +would cheerfully have watched the whole world depart from him, if he had +had the consciousness of righting in a good cause. He had thought +scornfully of the people who had betrayed their littleness by ignoring +him. But what if they had been right, and his had been the offense against +them? + +He found it almost unbearably difficult to walk through the streets of +Eagle Pass and on across the river. What had been his strength was now his +weakness. His loyalty to a good woman had been his armor; but what would +right-thinking people say of his loyalty to a woman who had deceived him, +and who felt no shame in continuing to deceive him, despite his efforts to +surround her with protection and love? + +And yet ... what did he know against Sylvia? She had gone riding--that was +all. That, and the fact that she had made a secret of the matter, and had +perhaps given him a false account of the manner in which she had paid for +her outings. + +He must make sure of much more than he already knew. Again and again he +clinched his hands in the office and on the street. He would not wrong the +woman he loved. He would not accept the verdict of other people. He would +have positive knowledge of his own before he acted. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Harboro had admitted a drop of poison to his veins and it was rapidly +spreading to every fibre of his being. He was losing the power to think +clearly where Sylvia was concerned. Even the most innocent acts of hers +assumed new aspects; and countless circumstances which in the past had +seemed merely puzzling to him arose before him now charged with deadly +significance. + +His days became a torture to him. He could not lose himself in a crowd, +and draw something of recuperation from a sense of obscurity, a feeling +that he was not observed. He seemed now to be cruelly visible to every man +and woman on both sides of the river. Strangers who gave more than the +most indifferent glance to his massive strength and romantic, swarthy +face, with its fine dark eyes and strong lines and the luxuriant black +mustache, became to him furtive witnesses to his shame--secret +commentators upon his weakness. He recalled pictures of men held in +pillories for communities to gibe at--and he felt that his position was +not unlike theirs. He had at times a frantic realization that he had +unconquerable strength, but that by some ironic circumstance he could not +use it. + +If his days were sapping his vigor and driving him to the verge of +madness, his nights were periods of a far more destructive torture. He had +resolved that Sylvia should see no change in him; he was trying to +persuade himself that there _was_ no change in him. Yet at every tenderly +inquiring glance of hers he felt that the blood must start forth on his +forehead, that body and skull must burst from the tumult going on within +them. + +It was she who brought matters to a climax. + +"Harboro, you're not well," she said one evening when her hand about his +neck had won no response beyond a heavy, despairing gesture of his arm. +His eyes were fixed on vacancy and were not to be won away from their +unseeing stare. + +"You're right, Sylvia," he said, trying to arouse himself. "I've been +trying to fight against it, but I'm all out of sorts." + +"You must go away for a while," she said. She climbed on his knee and +assumed a prettily tyrannical manner. "You've been working too hard. They +must give you a vacation, and you must go entirely away. For two weeks at +least." + +The insidious poison that was destroying him spread still further with a +swift rush at that suggestion. She would be glad to have him out of the +way for a while. Were not unfaithful wives always eager to send their +husbands away? He closed his eyes resolutely and his hands gripped the +arms of his chair. Then a plan which he had been vaguely shaping took +definite form. She was really helping him to do the thing he felt he must +do. + +He turned to her heavily like a man under the influence of a drug. "Yes, +I'll go away for a while," he agreed. "I'll make arrangements right +away--to-morrow." + +"And I'll go with you," she said with decision, "and help to drive the +evil hours away." She had his face between her hands and was smiling +encouragingly. + +The words were like a dagger thrust. Surely, they were proof of fidelity, +of affection, and in his heart he had condemned her. + +"Would you like to go with me, Sylvia?" he asked. His voice had become +husky. + +She drew back from him as if she were performing a little rite. Her eyes +filled with tears. "Harboro!" she cried, "do you need to ask me that?" Her +fingers sought his face and traveled with ineffable tenderness from line +to line. It was as if she were playing a little love-lyric of her own upon +a beautiful harp. And then she fell upon his breast and pressed her cheek +to his. "Harboro!" she cried again. She had seen only the suffering in his +eyes. + +He held her in his arms and leaned back with closed eyes. A hymn of praise +was singing through all his being. She loved him! she loved him! And then +that hymn of praise sank to pianissimo notes and was transformed by some +sort of evil magic to something shockingly different. It was as if a +skillful yet unscrupulous musician were constructing a revolting medley, +placing the sacred song in juxtaposition with the obscene ditty. And the +words of the revolting thing were "Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and Sylvia!" + +He opened his eyes resolutely. "We're making too much over a little +matter," he said with an obvious briskness which hid the cunning in his +mind. "I suppose I've been sticking to things too close. I'll take a run +down the line and hunt up some of the old fellows--down as far as Torreon +at least. I'll rough it a little. I suspect things have been a little too +soft for me here. Maybe some of the old-timers will let me climb up into a +cab and run an engine again. That's the career for a man--with the +distance rushing upon you, and your engine swaying like a bird in the air! +That will fix me!" + +He got up with an air of vigor, helping Sylvia to her feet. "It wouldn't +be the sort of experience a woman could share," he added. "You'll stay +here at home and get a little rest yourself. I must have been spoiling +things for you, too." He looked at her shrewdly. + +"Oh, no," she said honestly. "I'm only sorry I didn't realize earlier that +you need to get away." + +She went out of the room with something of the regal industry of the queen +bee, as if she were the natural source of those agencies which sustain and +heal. He heard her as she busied herself in their bedroom. He knew that +she was already making preparations for that journey of his. She was +singing a soft, wordless song in her throat as she worked. + +And Harboro, with an effect of listening with his eyes, stood in his place +for a long interval, and then shook his head slowly. + +He could not believe in her; he would not believe in her. At least he +would not believe in her until she had been put to the test and met the +test triumphantly. He could not believe in her; and yet it seemed equally +impossible for him to hold with assurance to his unbelief. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Returning from the office the next forenoon, Harboro stopped at the head +of the short street on which the chief stable of Eagle Pass was situated. + +He had had no difficulty in obtaining a leave of absence, which was to be +for one week with the privilege of having it extended to twice that time +if he felt he needed it. In truth, his immediate superior had heartily +approved of the plan of his going for an outing. He had noticed, he +admitted, that Harboro hadn't been altogether fit of late. He was glad he +had decided to go away for a few days. He good-naturedly insisted upon the +leave of absence taking effect immediately. + +And Harboro had turned back toward Eagle Pass pondering darkly. + +He scanned the street in the direction of the stable. A stable-boy was +exercising a young horse in the street, leading it back and forth, but +otherwise the thoroughfare seemed somnolently quiet. + +He sauntered along until he came to the stable entrance. He had the +thought of entering into a casual conversation with the proprietor. He +would try to get at the actual facts touching that mistake the stable +people had made. He would not question them too pointedly. He would not +betray the fact that he believed something was wrong. He would put his +questions casually, innocently. + +The boy was just turning in with the horse he had been exercising. He +regarded Harboro expectantly. He was the boy who had brought the horses on +the night of that ride to the Quemado. + +"I didn't want anything," said Harboro; "that is, nothing in particular. +I'll be likely to need a horse in a day or two, that's all." + +He walked leisurely into the shady, cool place of pungent odors. He had +just ascertained that the proprietor was out when his attention was +attracted by a dog which lay with perfect complacency under a rather +good-looking horse. + +"A pretty dangerous place, isn't it?" he asked of the stable-boy. + +"You _would_ think so, wouldn't you? But it isn't. They're friends. You'll +always find them together when they can get together. When Prince--that's +the horse--is out anywhere, we have to pen old Mose up to keep him from +following. Once when a fellow hired Prince to make a trip over to +Spofford, old Mose got out, two or three hours later, and followed him all +the way over. He came back with him the next day, grinning as if he'd done +something great. We never could figure out how old Mose knew where he had +gone. Might have smelled out his trail. Or he might have heard them +talking about going to Spofford, and understood. The more you know about +dogs the less you know about them--same as humans." + +He went back farther into the stable and busied himself with a harness +that needed mending. + +Harboro was looking after him with peculiar intensity. He looked at the +horse, which stood sentinel-like, above the drowsing dog. Then he engaged +the stable-boy in further conversation. + +"A pretty good-looking horse, too," he said. And when the boy nodded +without enthusiasm, he added: "By the way, I suppose it's usually your job +to get horses ready when people want them?" + +"Yes, mostly." + +Harboro put a new note of purposefulness into his voice. "I believe you +send a horse around for Mrs. Harboro occasionally?" + +"Oh, yes; every week or so, or oftener." + +Harboro walked to the boy's side and drew his wallet from his pocket +deliberately. "I wish," he said, "that the next time Mrs. Harboro needs a +horse you'd send this fine animal to her. I have an idea it would please +her. Will you remember?" He produced a bank-note and placed it slowly in +the boy's hand. + +The boy looked up at him dubiously, and then understood. "I'll remember," +he said. + +Harboro turned away, but at the entrance he stopped. "You'd understand, of +course, that the dog wouldn't be allowed to go along," he called back. + +"Oh, yes. Old Mose would be penned up. I'd see to it." + +"And I suppose," said Harboro finally, "that if I'd telephone to you any +day it wouldn't take you long to get a horse ready for me, would it? I've +been thinking of using a horse a little myself." + +He was paying little attention to the boy's assurances as he went away. +His step had become a little firmer as he turned toward home. He seemed +more like himself when he entered the house and smiled into his wife's +alertly questioning eyes. + +"It's all right, I'm to get away," he explained. "I'm away now, strictly +speaking. I want to pack up a few things some time to-day and get the +early morning train for Torreon." + +She seemed quite gleeful over this cheerful information. She helped him +make selection of the things he would need, and she was ready with many +helpful suggestions. It seemed that his train left the Eagle Pass station +at five o'clock in the morning--a rather awkward hour; but he did not +mind, he said. + +They spent the day together without any restraints, seemingly. There were +a good many things to do, and Sylvia was happy in the thought of serving +him. If he regarded her now and again with an expression of smouldering +fire in his eyes she was unaware of the fact. She sang as she worked, +interrupting her song at frequent intervals to admonish him against this +forgetfulness or that. + + * * * * * + +She seemed to be asleep when, an hour before daybreak, he stirred and left +her side. But she was awake immediately. + +"Is it time to go?" she asked sleepily. + +"I hoped I needn't disturb you," he said. "Yes, I ought to be getting on +my way to the station." + +She lay as if she were under a spell while he dressed and made ready to go +out. Her eyes were wide open, though she seemed to see nothing. Perhaps +she was merely stupid as a result of being awakened; or it may be that +indefinable, foreboding thoughts filled her mind. + +When he came to say good-by to her she put her arms around his neck. "Try +to have a good time," she said, "and come back to me your old self +again." + +She felt fearfully alone as she heard him descend the stairs. She held her +head away from the pillow until she heard the sharp closing of the +street-door. "He's gone," she said. She shivered a little and drew the +covers more closely about her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Runyon rode out past Harboro's house that afternoon. + +Sylvia, in her place by the window, watched him come. In the distance he +assumed a new aspect in her eyes. She thought of him impersonally--as a +thrilling picture. She rejoiced in the sight of him as one may in the +spectacle of an army marching with banners and music. + +And then he became to her a glorious troubadour, having no relationship +with prosaic affairs and common standards, but a care-free creature to be +loved and praised because of his song; to be heard gladly and sped on his +way with a sigh. + +The golden notes of his songs out at the Quemado echoed in her ears like +the mournful sound of bells across lonely fields. Her heart ached again at +the beauty of the songs he had sung. + +... She went down-stairs and stood by the gate, waiting for him. + +They talked for a little while, Runyon bending down toward her. She +thought of him as an incomparably gay and happy creature. His musical +powers gave him a mystic quality to her. She caressed his horse's mane and +thrilled as she touched it, as if she were caressing the man--as if he +were some new and splendid type of centaur. And Runyon seemed to read her +mind. His face became more ruddy with delight. His flashing eyes suggested +sound rather than color--they were laughing. + +Their conference ended and Runyon rode on up the hill. Sylvia carried +herself circumspectly enough as she went back into the house, but she was +almost giddy with joy over the final words of that conference. Runyon had +lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and had spoken with intensity as +one sometimes speaks to children. + +She did not ride that afternoon. It appeared that all her interests for +the time being were indoors. She spent much of her time among the things +which reminded her most strongly of Harboro; she sought out little +services she could perform for him, to delight him when he returned. She +talked with more than common interest with Antonia, following the old +woman from kitchen to dining-room and back again. She seemed particularly +in need of human companionship, of sympathy. She trusted the old servant +without reserve. She knew that here was a woman who would neither see nor +speak nor hear evil where either she or Harboro was concerned. Not that +her fidelity to either of them was particular; it was the home itself that +was sacred. The flame that warmed the house and made the pot boil was the +thing to be guarded at any cost. Any winds that caused this flame to waver +were evil winds and must not be permitted to blow. The old woman was +covertly discerning; but she had the discretion common to those who know +that homes are built only by a slow and patient process--though they may +be destroyed easily. + +When it came time to light the lamps Sylvia went up into her boudoir. She +liberated the imprisoned currents up in the little mediaeval lanterns. She +drew the blinds so that she should feel quite alone. She had put on one of +the dresses which made her look specially slim and soft and childlike. She +knew the garment became her, because it always brought a tender expression +to Harboro's eyes. + +And then she sat down and waited. + +At eight o'clock Runyon came. So faint was his summons at the door that it +might have been a lost bird fluttering in the dark. But Sylvia heard it. +She descended and opened the door for him. In the dimly lighted hall she +whispered: "Are you sure nobody saw you come?" + +He took both her hands into his and replied: "Nobody!" + +They mounted the steps like two children, playing a slightly hazardous +game. "The cat's away," she said, her eyes beaming with joy. + +He did not respond in words but his eyes completed the old saying. + +They went up into the boudoir, and he put away his coat and hat. + +They tried to talk, each seeking to create the impression that what was +being said was quite important. But neither heard what the other said. +They were like people talking in a storm or in a house that is burning +down. + +He took his place at the piano after a while. It seemed that he had +promised to sing for her--for her alone. He glanced apprehensively toward +the windows, as if to estimate the distance which separated him from the +highway. It was no part of their plan that he should be heard singing in +Sylvia's room by casual passers-by on the Quemado Road. + +He touched the keys lightly and when he sang his voice seemed scarcely to +carry across the room. There was a rapid passage on the keyboard, like the +patter of a pony's hoofs in the distance, and then the words came: + + "From the desert I come to thee + On my Arab shod with fire...." + +It was a work of art in miniature. The crescendo passages were sung +relatively with that introductory golden whisper as a standard. For the +moment Sylvia forgot that the singer's shoulders were beautifully compact +and vigorous. She was visualizing the Bedouin who came on his horse to +declare his passion. + + "And I faint in thy disdain!..." + +She stood near him, spellbound by the animation of his face, the seeming +reality of his plea. He was not a singer; he was the Bedouin lover. + +There was a fanatic ardor in the last phrase: + + "Till the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!" + +He turned lightly away from the piano. He was smiling radiantly. He threw +out his arms with an air of inviting approval; but the gesture was to her +an invitation, a call. She was instantly on her knees beside him, drawing +his face down to hers. His low laughter rippled against her face as he put +his arms around her and drew her closer to him. + +They were rejoicing in an atmosphere of dusky gold. The light from the +mediaeval lanterns fell on her hair and on his laughing face which glowed +as with a kind of universal good-will. A cloud of delicate incense seemed +to envelop them as their lips met. + +And then the shadow fell. It fell when the door opened quietly and Harboro +came into the room. + +He closed the door behind him and regarded them strangely--as if his face +had died, but as if his eyes retained the power of seeing. + +Sylvia drew away from Runyon, not spasmodically, but as if she were moving +in her sleep. She left one hand on Runyon's sleeve. She was regarding +Harboro with an expression of hopeless bewilderment. She seemed incapable +of speaking. You would not have said she was frightened. You would have +thought: "She has been slain." + +Harboro's lips were moving, but he seemed unable to speak immediately. + +It was Sylvia who broke the silence. + +"You shouldn't have tricked me, Harboro!" she said. Her voice had the +mournful quality of a dove's. + +He seemed bewildered anew by that. The monstrous inadequacy of it was too +much for him. He had tricked her, certainly, and that wasn't a manly thing +to do. He seemed to be trying to get his faculties adjusted. Yet the words +he uttered finally were pathetically irrelevant, it would have seemed. He +addressed Runyon. + +"Are you the sort of man who would talk about--about this sort of thing?" +he asked. + +Runyon had not ceased to regard him alertly with an expression which can +be described only as one of infinite distaste--with the acute discomfort +of an irrepressible creature who shrinks from serious things. + +"I am not," he said, as if his integrity were being unwarrantably +questioned. + +Harboro's voice had been strained like that of a man who is dying of +thirst. He went on with a disconcerting change of tone. He was trying to +speak more vigorously, more firmly; but the result was like some talking +mechanism uttering words without shading them properly. "I suppose you are +willing to marry her?" he asked. + +It was Sylvia who answered this. "He does not wish to marry me," she +said. + +Harboro seemed staggered again. "I want his answer to that," he insisted. + +"Well, then, I don't want to marry him," continued Sylvia. + +Harboro ignored her. "What do you say, Runyon?" + +"In view of her unwillingness, and the fact that she is already +married----" + +"Runyon!" The word was pronounced almost like a snarl. Runyon had adopted +a facetious tone which had stirred Harboro's fury. + +Something of the resiliency of Runyon's being vanished at that tone in the +other man's voice. He looked at Harboro ponderingly, as a child may look +at an unreasoning parent. And then he became alert again as Harboro threw +at him contemptuously: "Go on; get out!" + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PART VII + +SYLVIA + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Sylvia did not look at Runyon as he picked up his coat and hat and +vanished. She did not realize that he had achieved a perfect middle ground +between an undignified escape and a too deliberate going. She was +regarding Harboro wanly. "You shouldn't have come back," she said. She had +not moved. + +"I didn't go away," said Harboro. + +Her features went all awry. "You mean----" + +"I've spent the day in the guest-chamber. I had to find out. I had to make +sure." + +"Oh, Harboro!" she moaned; and then with an almost ludicrously swift +return to habitual, petty concerns: "You've had no food all day." + +The bewildered expression returned to his eyes. "Food!" he cried. He +stared at her as if she had gone insane. "Food!" he repeated. + +She groped about as if she were in the dark. When her fingers came into +contact with a chair she drew it toward her and sat down. + +Harboro took a step forward. He meant to take a chair, too; but his eyes +were not removed from hers, and she shrank back with a soft cry of +terror. + +"You needn't be afraid," he assured her. He sat down opposite her, slowly, +as very ill people sit down. + +As if she were still holding to some thought that had been in her mind, +she asked: "What _do_ you mean to do, then?" + +He was breathing heavily. "What does a man do in such a case?" he said--to +himself rather than to her, it might have seemed. "I shall go away," he +said at length. "I shall clear out." He brought his hands down upon the +arms of his chair heavily--not in wrath, but as if surrendering all hope +of seeing clearly. "Though it isn't a very simple thing to do," he added +slowly. "You see, you're a part of me. At least, that's what I've come to +feel. And how can a man go away from himself? How can a part of a man go +away and leave the other part?" He lifted his fists and smote his breast +until his whole body shook. And then he leaned forward, his elbows on the +arms of his chair, his hands clasped before him. He was staring into +vacancy. He aroused himself after a time. "Of course, I'll have to go," he +said. He seemed to have become clear on that one point. And then he flung +himself back in his chair and thrust his arms out before him. "What were +you driving at, Sylvia?" he asked. + +"Driving at...?" + +"I hadn't done you any harm. Why did you marry me, if you didn't love +me?" + +"I do love you!" She spoke with an intensity which disturbed him. + +"Ah, you mean--you did?" + +"I mean I do!" + +He arose dejectedly with the air of a man who finds it useless to make any +further effort. "We'll not talk about it, then," he said. He turned toward +the door. + +"I do love you," she repeated. She arose and took a step toward him, +though her limbs were trembling so that they seemed unable to sustain her +weight. "Harboro!" she called as he laid his hand on the door. "Harboro! I +want you to listen to me." She sank back into her chair, and Harboro +turned and faced her again wonderingly. + +"If you'd try to understand," she pleaded. "I'm not going to ask you to +stay. I only want you to understand." She would not permit her emotions to +escape bounds. Something that was courageous and honorable in her forbade +her to appeal to his pity alone; something that was shrewd in her warned +her that such a course would be of no avail. + +"You see, I was what people call a bad woman when you first met me. +Perhaps you know that now?" + +"Go on," he said. + +"But that's such a silly phrase--_a bad woman_. Do you suppose I ever felt +like a _bad woman_--until now? Even now I can't realize that the words +belong to me, though I know that according to the rules I've done you a +bad turn, Harboro." + +She rocked in silence while she gained control over her voice. + +"What you don't know," she said finally, "is how things began for me, in +those days back in San Antonio, when I was growing up. It's been bad luck +with me always; or if you don't believe in luck, then everything has been +a kind of trick played on me from the beginning. Not by anybody--I don't +mean that. But by something bigger. There's the word Destiny...." She +began to wring her hands nervously. "It seems like telling an idle tale. +When you frame the sentences they seem to have existed in just that form +always. I mean, losing my mother when I was twelve; and the dreadful +poverty of our home and its dulness, and the way my father sat in the sun +and seemed unable to do anything. I don't believe he _was_ able to do +anything. There's the word Destiny again. We lived in what's called the +Mexican section, where everybody was poor. What's the meaning of it; there +being whole neighborhoods of people who are hungry half the time? + +"I was still nothing but a child when I began to notice how others escaped +from poverty a little--the Mexican girls and women I lived among. It +seemed to be expected of them. They didn't think anything of it at all. It +didn't make any difference in their real selves, so far as you could see. +They went on going to church and doing what little tasks they could find +to do--just like other women. The only precaution they took when a man +came was to turn the picture of the Virgin to the wall...." + +Harboro had sat down again and was regarding her darkly. + +"I don't mean that I felt about it just as they did when I got older. You +see, they had their religion to help them. They had been taught to call +the thing they did a sin, and to believe that a sin was forgiven if they +went and confessed to the priest. It seemed to make it quite simple. But I +couldn't think of it as a sin. I couldn't clearly understand what sin +meant, but I thought it must be the thing the happy people were guilty of +who didn't give my father something to do, so that we could have a decent +place to live in. You must remember how young I was! And so what the other +girls called a sin seemed to me ... oh, something that was untidy--that +wasn't nice." + +Harboro broke in upon her narrative when she paused. + +"I'm afraid you've always been very fastidious." + +She grasped at that straw gratefully. "Yes, I have been. There isn't one +man in a hundred who appeals to me, even now." And then something, as if +it were the atmosphere about her, clarified her vision for the moment, and +she looked at Harboro in alarm. She knew, then, that he had spoken +sarcastically, and that she had fallen into the trap he had set for her. +"Oh, Harboro! You!" she cried. She had not known that he could be unkind. +Her eyes swam in tears and she looked at him in agony. And in that moment +it seemed to him that his heart must break. It was as if he looked on +while Sylvia drowned, and could not put forth a hand to save her. + +She conquered her emotion. She only hoped that Harboro would hear her to +the end. She resumed: "And when I began to see that people are expected to +shape their own lives, mine had already been shaped. I couldn't begin at a +beginning, really; I had to begin in the middle. I had to go on weaving +the threads that were already in my hands--the soiled threads. I met nice +women after a while--women from the San Antonio missions, I think they +were; and they were kind to me and gave me books to read. One of them took +me to the chapel--where the clock ticked. But they couldn't really help +me. I think they did influence me more than I realized, possibly; for my +father began to tell them I wasn't at home ... and he brought me out here +to Eagle Pass soon after they began to befriend me." + +Harboro was staring at her with a vast incredulity. "And then--?" he +asked. + +"And then it went on out here--though it seemed different out here. I had +the feeling of being shut out, here. In a little town people know. Life in +a little town is like just one checker-board, with a game going on; but +the big towns are like a lot of checkerboards, with the men on some of +them in disorder, and not being watched at all." + +Harboro was shaking his head slowly, and she made an effort to wipe some +of the blackness from the picture. "You needn't believe I didn't have +standards that I kept to. Some women of my kind would have lied or stolen, +or they would have made mischief for people. And then there were the young +fellows, the mere boys.... It's a real injury to them to find that a girl +they like is--is not nice. They're so wonderfully ignorant. A woman is +either entirely good or entirely bad in their eyes. You couldn't really do +anything to destroy their faith, even when they pretended to be rather +rough and wicked. I wasn't that kind of a bad woman, at least." + +Harboro's brow had become furrowed, with impatience, seemingly. "But your +marriage to me, Sylvia?" He put the question accusingly. + +"I thought you knew--at first. I thought you _must_ know. There are men +who will marry the kind of woman I was. And it isn't just the little or +worthless men, either. Sometimes it is the big men, who can understand and +be generous. Up to the time of our marriage I thought you knew and that +you were forgiving everything. And at last I couldn't bear to tell you. +Not alone from fear of losing you, but I knew it would hurt you horribly, +and I hoped ... I had made up my mind ... I _was_ truly loyal to you, +Harboro, until they tricked me in my father's house." + +Harboro continued to regard her, a judge unmoved. "And Runyon, +Sylvia--Runyon?" he asked accusingly. + +"I know that's the thing you couldn't possibly forgive, and yet that seems +the slightest thing of all to me. You can't know what it is to be humbled, +and so many innocent pleasures taken away from you. When Fectnor came back +... oh, it seemed to me that life itself mocked me and warned me coldly +that I needn't expect to be any other than the old Sylvia, clear to the +end. I had begun to have a little pride, and to have foolish dreams. And +then I went back to my father's house. It wasn't my father; it wasn't even +Fectnor. It was Life itself whipping me back into my place again. + +"... And then Runyon came. He meant pleasure to me--nothing more. He +seemed such a gay, shining creature!" She looked at him in the agony of +utter despair. "I know how it appears to you; but if you could only see +how it seemed to me!" + +"I'm trying," said Harboro, unmoved. + +"If I'd been a little field of grass for the sheep to graze on, do you +suppose I shouldn't have been happy if the birds passed by, or that I +shouldn't have been ready for the sheep when they came? If I'd been a +little pool in the desert, do you suppose I wouldn't have been happier for +the sunlight, and just as ready for the rains when they came?" + +He frowned. "But you're neither grass nor water," he said. + +"Ah, I think I am just that--grass and water. I think that is what we all +are--with something of mystery added." + +He seized upon that one tangible thought. "There you have it, that +_something of mystery_," he said. "That's the thing that makes the world +move--that keeps people clean." + +"Yes," she conceded dully, "or makes people set up standards of their own +and compel other people to accept them whether they understand them or +believe in them or not." + +When he again regarded her with dark disapproval she went on: + +"What I wanted to tell you, Harboro, is that my heart has been like a +brimming cup for you always. It was only that which ran over that I gave +to another. Runyon never could have robbed the cup--a thousand Runyons +couldn't. He was only like a flower to wear in my hair, a ribbon to put on +for an outing. But you ... you were the hearth for me to sit down before +at night, a wall to keep the wind away. What was it you said once about a +man and woman becoming one? You have been my very body to me, Harboro; and +any other could only have been a friendly wind to stir me for a moment and +then pass on." + +Harboro's face darkened. "I was the favorite lover," he said. + +"You won't understand," she said despairingly. And then as he arose and +turned toward the door again she went to him abjectly, appealingly. +"Harboro!" she cried, "I know I haven't explained it right, but I want you +to believe me! It is you I love, really; it is you I am grateful to and +proud of. You're everything to me that you've thought of being. I couldn't +live without you!" She sank to her knees and covered her eyes with one +hand while with the other she reached out to him: "Harboro!" Her face was +wet with tears, now; her body was shaken with sobs. + +He looked down at her for an instant, his brows furrowed, his eyes filled +with horror. He drew farther away, so that she could not touch him. "Great +God!" he cried at last, and then she knew that he had gone, closing the +door sharply after him. + +She did not try to call him back. Some stoic quality in her stayed her. It +would be useless to call him; it would only tear her own wounds wider +open, it would distress him without moving him otherwise. It would alarm +old Antonia. + +If he willed to come back, he would come of his own accord. If he could +reconcile the things she had done with any hope of future happiness he +would come back to her again. + +But she scarcely hoped for his return. She had always had a vague +comprehension of those pragmatic qualities in his nature which placed him +miles above her, or beneath her, or beyond her. She had drunk of the cup +which had been offered her, and she must not rebel because a bitter +sediment lay on her lips. She had always faintly realized that the hours +she spent with Runyon might some day have to be paid for in loneliness and +despair. + +Yet now that Harboro was gone she stood at the closed door and stared at +it as if it could never open again save to permit her to pass out upon +ways of darkness. She leaned against it and laid her face against her arm +and wept softly. And then she turned away and knelt by the chair he had +occupied and hid her face in her hands. + +She knew he would no longer be visible when she went to the window. She +had spared herself the sight of him on his way out of her life. But now +she took her place and began, with subconscious hope, the long vigil she +was to keep. She stared out on the road over which he had passed. If he +came back he would be visible from this place by the window. + +Hours passed and her face became blank, as the desert became blank. The +light seemed to die everywhere. The little home beacons abroad in the +desert were blotted out one by one. Eagle Pass became a ghostly group of +houses from which the last vestiges of life vanished. She became stiff and +inert as she sat in her place with her eyes held dully on the road. Once +she dozed lightly, to awaken with an intensified sense of tragedy. Had +Harboro returned during that brief interval of unconsciousness? She knew +he had not. But until the dawn came she sat by her place, steadfastly +waiting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +When Harboro went down the stairs and out of the house he had a purposeful +air which vanished as soon as his feet were set on the highway. Where was +he going? Where _could_ he go? That beginning he had made usually ended in +the offices across the river. But he could not go to his office now. There +was nothing there for him to do. And even if he were able to get in, and +to find some unfinished task to which he could turn, his problem would not +be solved. He could not go on working always. A man must have some +interests other than his work. + +He pulled himself together and set off down the road. He realized that his +appearance must be such that he would attract attention and occasion +comment. The foundations of his pride stiffened, as they had always done +when he was required to face extraordinary difficulties. He must not allow +casual passers-by to perceive that things were not right with him. They +would know that he and Sylvia were having difficulties. Doubtless they had +been expecting something of the sort from the beginning. + +He seemed quite himself but for a marked self-concentration as he walked +through the town. Dunwoodie, emerging from the Maverick bar, hailed him as +he passed. He did not hear--or he was not immediately conscious of +hearing. But half a dozen steps farther on he checked himself. Some one +had spoken to him. He turned around. "Ah, Dunwoodie--good evening!" he +said. But he did not go back, and Dunwoodie looked after him meditatively +and then went back into the bar, shaking his head. He had always meant to +make a friend of Harboro, but the thing evidently was not to be done. + +Harboro was scarcely conscious of the fact that he crossed the river. If +he encountered any one whom he knew--or any one at all--he passed without +noticing. And this realization troubled him. The customs guard, who was an +old acquaintance, must have been in his place on the bridge. He tried to +arouse himself anew. Surely his conduct must seem strange to those who +chanced to observe him. + +With an air of briskness he went into the _Internacional_ dining-room. He +had had nothing to eat all day. He would order supper and then he would +feel more like himself. He did not realize what it was that made his +situation seem like a period of suspense, which kept in his mind the +subconscious thought that he would come out of the dark into a clearing if +he persevered. + +The fact was that something of what Sylvia had said to him had touched his +conscience, if it had not affected his sense of logic. She really could +not be quite what she seemed to be--that was the unshaped thought in the +back of his brain. There were explanations to make which had not yet been +made. If he told himself that he had solved the problem by leaving the +house, he knew in reality that he had not done so. He was benumbed, +bewildered. He must get back his reasoning faculties, and then he would +see more clearly, both as to what had been done and what he must set about +doing. + +He had an idea that he could now understand the sensations of people who +had indulged too freely in some sort of drug. He had temporarily lost the +power to feel. Here was Sylvia, a self-confessed wanton--and yet here was +Sylvia as deeply intrenched in his heart as ever. This was a monstrous +contradiction. One of these things must be a fact, the other a fantastic +hallucination. + +The waiter brought food which he looked at with distaste. It was a typical +frontier meal--stereotyped, uninviting. There were meat and eggs and +coffee, and various heavy little dishes containing dabs of things which +were never eaten. He drank the coffee and realized that he had been almost +perishing from thirst. He called for a second cup; and then he tried to +eat the meat and eggs; but they were like dust--it seemed they might choke +him. He tried the grapes which had got hidden under the cruet, and the +acid of these pleased him for an instant, but the pulp was tasteless, +unpalatable. + +He finished the second cup of coffee and sat listlessly regarding the +things he had not touched. He had hoped he might prolong the supper hour, +since he could think of nothing else to engage his attention. But he was +through, and he had consumed only a few minutes. + +His glance wandered to a railroad poster in the dining-room, and this +interested him for an instant. Attractive names caught his eye: Torreon, +Tampico, Vera Cruz, the City, Durango. They were all waiting for him, the +old towns. There was the old work to be done, the old life to resume.... +Yes, but there was Sylvia. Sylvia, who had said with the intentness of a +child, "I love you," and again, "I love you." She did not want Runyon. She +wanted him, Harboro. And he wanted her--good God, how he wanted her! Had +he been mad to wander away from her? His problem lay with her, not +elsewhere. + +And then he jerked his head in denial of that conclusion. No, he did not +want her. She had laid a path of pitch for his feet, and the things he +might have grasped with his hands, to draw himself out of the path which +befouled his feet--they too were smeared with pitch. She did not love him, +certainly. He clung tenaciously to that one clear point. There lay the +whole situation, perfectly plain. She did not love him. She had betrayed +him, had turned the face of the whole community against him, had permitted +him to affront the gentle people who had unselfishly aided him and given +him their affection. + +He wandered about the streets until nearly midnight, and then he engaged a +room in the _Internacional_ and assured himself that it was time to go to +bed. He needed a good rest. To-morrow he would know what to do. + +But the sight of the room assigned to him surprised him in some odd +way--as if every article of furniture in it were mocking him. It was not a +room really to be used, he thought. At least, it was not a room for him to +use. He did not belong in that bed; he had a bed of his own, in the house +he had built on the Quemado Road. And then he remembered the time when he +had been able to hang his hat anywhere and consider himself at home, and +how he had always been grateful for a comfortable bed, no matter where. +That was the feeling which he must get back again. He must get used to the +strangeness of things, so that such a room as this would seem his natural +resting-place, and that other house which had been destroyed for him would +seem a place of shame, to be avoided and forgotten. + +He slept fitfully. The movements of trains in the night comforted him in a +mournful fashion. They reminded him of that other life, which might be his +again. But even in his waking moments he reached out to the space beside +him to find Sylvia, and the returning full realization of all that had +happened brought a groan to his throat. + +He dressed in the morning with a feeling of guilt, mingled with a sense of +relief. He had slept where he had had no business to sleep. He had been +idle at a time when he should have been active. He had done nothing, and +there was much to be done. He had not even rested. + +He put on an air of briskness, as one will don a garment, as he ordered +coffee and rolls in the dining-room. There were things to be attended to. +He must go over to the offices and write out his resignation. He must see +the General Manager and ask him for work on the road elsewhere. He must +transfer his holdings--his house and bank-account--to Sylvia. He had no +need of house or money, and she would need them badly now. And then ... +then he must begin life anew. + +It was all plain; yet his feet refused to bear him in the direction of the +railroad offices; his mind refused to grapple with the details of the task +of transferring to Sylvia the things he owned. Something constructive, +static, in the man's nature stayed him. + +He wandered away from the town during the day, an aimless impulse carrying +him quite out into the desert. He paused to inspect little irrigated spots +where humble gardens grew. He paused at mean _adobe_ huts and talked to +old people and to children. Again and again he came into contact with +conditions which annoyed and bewildered him. People were all bearing their +crosses. Some were hopelessly ill, waiting for death to relieve them, or +they were old and quite useless. And all were horribly poor, casting about +for meagre food and simple clothing which seemed beyond their reach. They +were lonely, overburdened, despondent, darkly philosophical. + +What was the meaning of human life, he wondered? Were men and women +created to suffer, to bear crosses which were not of their own making, to +suffer injustices which seemed pointless?... + +Late in the afternoon he was back in Piedras Negras again. He had eaten +nothing save a handful of figs which an old woman had given him, together +with a bowl of goat's milk. He had wished to pay for them, but the old +woman had shaken her head and turned away. + +He encountered a tourist in clerical garb--a thin-chested man with a +colorless face, but with sad, benevolent eyes--sitting in the plaza near +the sinister old _cuartel_. He sat down and asked abruptly in a voice +strangely high-pitched for his own: + +"Is a man ever justified in leaving his wife?" + +The tourist looked startled; but he was a man of tact and wisdom, +evidently, and he quickly adjusted himself to what was plainly a special +need, an extraordinary condition. "Ah, that's a very old question," he +replied gently. "It's been asked often, and there have been many +answers." + +"But is he?" persisted Harboro. + +"There are various conditions. If a man and a woman do not love each +other, wouldn't it seem wiser for them to rectify the mistake they had +made in marrying? But if they love each other ... it seems to me quite a +simple matter then. I should say that under no circumstances should they +part." + +"But if the wife has sinned?" + +"My dear man ... sinned; it's a difficult word. Let us try to define it. +Let us say that a sin is an act deliberately committed with the primary +intention of inflicting an injury upon some one. It becomes an ugly +matter. Very few people sin, if you accept my definition." + +Harboro was regarding him with dark intentness. + +"The trouble is," resumed the other man, "we often use the word sin when +we mean only a weakness. And a weakness in an individual should make us +cleave fast to him, so that he may not be wholly lost. I can't think of +anything so cruel as to desert one who has stumbled through weakness. The +desertion would be the real sin. Weaknesses are a sort of illness--and +even a pigeon will sit beside its mate and mourn, when its mate is ill. It +is a beautiful lesson in fidelity. A soldier doesn't desert his wounded +comrade in battle. He bears him to safety--or both perish together. And by +such deeds is the consciousness of God established in us." + +"Wait!" commanded Harboro. He clinched his fists. A phrase had clung to +him: "He bears him to safety or both perish together!" + +He arose from the seat he had taken and staggered away half a dozen steps, +his hands still clinched. Then, as if remembering, he turned about so that +he faced the man who had talked to him. Beyond loomed the ancient church +in which Sylvia had said it would seem possible to find God. Was He there +in reality, and was this one of His angels, strayed a little distance from +His side? It was not the world's wisdom that this man spoke, and yet how +eternally true his words had been! A flock of pigeons flew over the plaza +and disappeared in the western glow where the sun was setting. "Even a +pigeon will sit by its mate and mourn...." + +Harboro gazed at the man on the bench. His face moved strangely, as a dark +pool will stir from the action of an undercurrent. He could not speak for +a moment, and then he called back in a voice like a cry: "I thank you." + +"You are welcome--brother!" was the response. The man on the bench was +smiling. He coughed a little, and wondered if the open-air treatment the +physician had prescribed might not prove a bit heroic. When he looked +about him again his late companion was gone. + +Harboro was hurrying down toward the Rio Grande bridge. He was trying to +put a curb on his emotions, on his movements. It would never do for him to +hurry through the streets of Eagle Pass like a madman. He must walk +circumspectly. + +He was planning for the future. He would take Sylvia away--anywhere. They +would begin their married life anew. He would take her beyond the ordinary +temptations. They would live in a tent, an igloo, in the face of a cliff. +He would take her beyond the reach of the old evil influences, where he +could guide her back to the paths she had lost. He would search out some +place where there was never a dun horse with golden dapples, and a rider +who carried himself like a crier of God, carrying glad tidings across the +world. + +Yet he was never conscious of the manner in which he made that trying +journey. He was recalled to self when he reached his own door. He realized +that he was somewhat out of breath. The night had fallen and the house +revealed but little light from the front. Through the door he could see +that the dining-room was lighted. He tried the door stealthily and entered +with caution. It would not do to startle Sylvia. + +Ah--that was her voice in the dining-room. The telephone bell had sounded, +just as he opened the door, and she was responding to the call. + +Her voice seemed cold at first: "I didn't catch the name." And then it +turned to a caress: "Oh, Mendoza--I didn't hear at first. Of course, I +want to see you." There was now a note of perplexity in her tone, and +then: "No, don't come here. It would be better for me to see you at my +father's. In the afternoon." + +Harboro found himself leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. +Mendoza! The town's notorious philanderer, who had regarded Sylvia with +insolent eyes that night out at the Quemado! Yes, and she had danced with +him the minute his back was turned; danced with him with unconcealed joy. +Mendoza.... + +He climbed the stairs slowly. He heard Sylvia's footsteps as she moved +away; into the kitchen, probably. He climbed stealthily, like a thief. He +mustn't permit Sylvia to hear him. He couldn't see her now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Sylvia had spent the entire day by her window, looking down the road. She +had refused the food that old Antonia had brought, and the comforting +words that came with it. Something that was not a part of herself argued +with her that Harboro would come back, though all that she was by training +and experiences warned her that she must not look for him. + +At nightfall she turned wearily when Antonia tapped at her door. + +"_Nina!_" The troubled old woman held out a beseeching hand. "You must +have food. I have prepared it for you, again. There are very good eggs, +and a glass of milk, and coffee--coffee with a flavor! Come, there will be +another day, and another. Sorrows pass in the good God's time; and even a +blind sheep will find its blade of grass." Her hand was still extended. + +Sylvia went to her and kissed her withered cheek. "I will try," she said +with docility. + +And they went down the stairs as if they were four; the young woman +walking with Despair, the old woman moving side by side with Knowledge. + +It was then that the telephone rang and Sylvia went to the instrument and +took down the receiver with trembling fingers. If it were only Harboro!... +But it was a woman's voice, and the hope within her died. She could +scarcely attend, after she realized that it was a woman who spoke to her. +The name "Mrs. Mendoza" meant nothing to her for an instant. And then she +aroused herself. She must not be ungracious. "Oh, Mendoza," she said; "I +didn't hear at first." She felt as if a breath of cold air had enveloped +her, but she shook off the conviction. From habit she spoke cordially; +with gratitude to the one woman in Eagle Pass who had befriended her she +spoke with tenderness. The wife of Jesus Mendoza wanted to call on her. + +But Sylvia had planned the one great event of her life, and it occurred to +her that she ought not to permit this unfortunate woman to come to the +house on the morrow. It would be an unforgivable cruelty. And then she +thought of her father's house, and suggested that her visitor come to see +her there. + +She hung up the receiver listlessly and went into the kitchen, where +Antonia was eagerly getting a meal ready for her. She looked at these +affectionate preparations indulgently, as she might have looked at a child +who assured her that a wholly imaginary thing was a real thing. + +She ate dutifully, and then she took a bit of husk from Antonia's store +and made a cigarette. It was the first time she had smoked since her +marriage. "He's not coming back," she said in a voice like that of a +helpless old woman. She leaned her elbows on the table and smoked. Her +attitude did not suggest grief, but rather a leave-taking. + +Then with returning briskness she got up and found street apparel and left +the house. + +She went down into the town almost gayly--like the Sylvia of old. In the +drug-store she told an exciting little story to the clerk. There had been +a nest of scorpions ... would he believe it? In the kitchen! She had been +given such a start when the servant had found them. The servant had +screamed; quite naturally, too. She had been told that a weak solution, +sprinkled on the floor, would drive them away. What was it?... Yes, that +was it. She had forgotten. + +She received the small phial and paid the price with fingers which were +perfectly firm. And then she started back up the hill. + +Under a street light she became aware that she was being followed. She +turned with a start. It was only a dog--a forlorn little beast which +stopped when she stopped, and regarded her with soft, troubled eyes. + +She stooped and smoothed the creature's head. "You mustn't follow," she +said in a voice like hidden water. "I haven't any place to take +you--nowhere at all!" She went on up the hill. Once she turned and +observed that the lost dog stood where she had left him, still imploring +her for friendship. + +At her door she paused and turned. She leaned against the door-post in a +wistful attitude. A hundred lonely, isolated lights were burning across +the desert, as far as the eye could reach. They were little lights which +might have meant nothing at all to a happier observer; but to Sylvia they +told the story of men and women who had joined hands to fight the battle +of life; of the sweet, humble activities which keep the home intact--the +sweeping of the hearth, the mending of the fire, the expectant glance at +the clock, the sound of a foot-fall drawing near. There lay the desert, +stretching away to the Sierra Madre, a lonely waste; but it was a paradise +to those who tended their lights faithfully and waited with assurance for +those who were away. + +... She turned and entered her house stealthily. + +At the top of the stairs she paused in indecision. Antonia had not heard +her enter. (She did not know that the old woman was standing in the +kitchen under the picture of the Virgin, with her hands across her eyes +like a bandage.) The lovely boudoir called to her, but she would not enter +it. + +"I will go into the guest-chamber," she said; "that is the room set apart +for strangers. I think I must always have been a stranger here." + +She opened the door quietly. + +A pungent odor of smoke filled her nostrils. She groped for the light and +turned it on. + +Through little horizontal wisps of smoke she saw Harboro lying across the +bed, his great chest standing high, his muscular throat exposed to the +light, a glint of teeth showing under the sweeping black mustache. His +eyes, nearly closed, seemed to harbor an eager light--as if he had +travelled along a dark path and saw at last a beacon on a distant hilltop. +A pistol was still clasped in his dead hand. + +The unopened phial Sylvia carried slipped to the floor. She clutched at +her lips with both hands, to suppress the scream that arose within her. + +He had no right to lie so, in this room. That was her thought. He had +taken the place she had chosen for her own. + +And then she thought of Harboro as a stranger, too. Had she ever known +him, really? + +Her first thought recurred. It should have been her right to lie here in +the guest-chamber, not Harboro's. + +And yet, and yet.... + +The End + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Children of the Desert, by Louis Dodge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE DESERT *** + +***** This file should be named 26550.txt or 26550.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/5/5/26550/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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