Chapter 17

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.