Chapter 9

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.