In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more and
more to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
right in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desired
their town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy eastern
health-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historic
past were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for a
life of “culture, refinement and modern convenience” as the president of
the Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.
Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few years before had given way
to aggressively formal balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
that was indigenous had survived. This was known as a “_mesa_ supper.” It
might take place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of mountain and
desert. Several auto-loads of young folk would motor out, suitably
chaperoned and laden with provisions. Beside some water hole or mountain
stream fires would be built, steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
there would be singing and story-telling about the fire, and romantic
strolls by couples.
It was one of these expeditions that furnished Ramon with his second
opportunity in three weeks to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had
journeyed to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear water bubbled up in the
centre of the _mesa_. A grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place, and
there was an ancient _adobe_ ruin which looked especially effective by
moonlight.
The persistent Conny Masters was a member of the party, but he was
handicapped by the fact that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
else present. He had made a special study of Mexican dishes and had
written an article about them which had been rejected by no less than
twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty of the _enchilada_, which is a
delightful concoction of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected a
recipe of his own for this dish which he had named the Conny Masters
junior.
As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the chaperones were safely
anchored on rugs and blankets with their backs against trees, there was a
general demand, strongly backed by Ramon, that Conny should cook supper.
He was soon absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every step, while
the others gathered about him and offered encouragement and humorous
suggestion. But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the group, some
going for wood and some for water, and others on errands unstated.
Ramon found himself strolling under the cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of
them had said anything. It was almost as though the tryst had been agreed
upon before. She picked her way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass,
her skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume from her hair and
dress blew over him. He ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
touch. Never had she seemed more desirable, nor yet, for some reason, more
remote.
Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the great desert stars.
“Isn’t it big and beautiful?” she demanded. “And doesn’t it make you feel
free? It’s never like this at home, somehow.”
“What is it like where you live?” he enquired. He had a persistent desire
to see into her life and understand it, but everything she told him only
made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious origin and destiny.
“It’s a funny little New York factory city with very staid ways,” she
said. “You go to a dance at the country club every Saturday night and to
tea parties and things in between. You fight, bleed and die for your
social position and once in a while you stop and wonder why.… It’s a bore.
You can see yourself going on doing the same thing till the day of your
death.…”
Her discontent with things as they are found ready sympathy.
“That’s just the way it is here,” he said with conviction. “You can’t see
anything ahead.”
“Oh, I don’t think its the same here at all,” she protested. “This
country’s so big and interesting. It’s different.”
“Tell me how,” he demanded. “I haven’t seen anything interesting here
since I got back,—except you.”
She ignored the exception.
“I can’t express it exactly. The people here are just like people
everywhere else—most of them. But the country looks so big and unoccupied.
And blue mountains are so alluring. There might be anything beyond them …
adventures, opportunities.…”
This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but he could agree about the
mountains.
“It’s a fine country,” he assented. “For those that own it.”
“It’s just a feeling I have about it,” she went on, trying to express her
own half-formulated idea. “But then I have that feeling about life in
general, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in it. I mean the feeling
that it’s full of thrilling things, but somehow you miss them all.”
“I have felt something like that,” he admitted. “But I never could say
it.”
This discovery of an idea in common seemed somehow to bring them closer
together. His hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously he
drew her toward him. But she seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.
“You have no right to complain,” she told him. “A man can do something
about it.”
“Yes,” he agreed, speaking a reflection without stopping to put it in
conventional language. “It must be hell to be a woman … excuse me … I
mean.…”
“Don’t apologize. It is—just that. A man at least has a fighting chance to
escape boredom. But they won’t even let a woman fight. I wish I were a
man.”
“Well; I don’t,” he asserted with warmth, unconsciously tightening his
hold upon her arm. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re a woman.”
“Oh, are you?” She looked up at him with challenging, provocative eyes.
For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered between them like an
invisible fairy presence of which they both were sweetly aware, and no one
else.
“Hey there! all you spooners!” came a jovial and irreverent voice from the
vicinity of the camp fire. “Come and eat.”
The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone. She turned with a little
laugh, and they went in silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon them. She was pink and
self-conscious, looking at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
care. He was proud and elated. This, he knew, would couple their names in
gossip, would make her partly his.