He had received a note of sympathy from her soon after his uncle’s death
and he had called at the Roths’ once, but had found several other callers
there and no opportunity of being alone with her. Then she had gone away
on a two-weeks, automobile trip to the Mesa Verde National Park, so that
he had seen practically nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
thinking of her more confidently than ever before. He was rich now, he was
strong. All of the preliminaries had been finished. He could go to her and
claim her.
He called her on the telephone from his office, and the Mexican maid
answered. She would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long wait she
reported that Miss Roth was out. He tried again that day, and a third time
the next morning with a like result.
This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment. He felt sure she had not
really been out all three times. Were her mother and brother keeping his
message from her? Or had something turned her against him? He remembered
with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time, the insinuations of
Father Lugaria. Could that miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
idea how she would have taken it if it had. He really did not know or
understand this girl at all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
desire which had become the ruling necessity of his life. To him she was a
being of a different sort, from a different world—a mystery. They had
nothing in common but a rebellious discontent with life, and this
glamorous bewildering thing, so much stronger than they, so far beyond
their comprehension, which they called their love.
That was the one thing he knew and counted on. He knew how imperiously it
drove him, and he knew that she had felt its power too. He had seen it
shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had heard it in her voice, and felt
it tremble in her body. If only he could get to her this potent thing
would carry them to its purpose through all barriers.
Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic campaign of
telephoning. At last she answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.
“But I have an engagement for tonight,” she told him.
“Then let me come tomorrow,” he urged.
“No; I can’t do that. Mother is having some people to dinner.…”
At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused, declared that her
plans were unfixed, told him to call “some other time.”
His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed these gringos. He hated them. He
wished for the power to leave her alone, to humble her by neglect. But he
knew that he did have it. Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained by watching that
she was at home.
All three of them received him in their sitting room, which they called
the library. It was an attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking books in sets, a
silver tea service on a little wheeled table, flowers that matched the
wall paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with a not-too-disorderly
array of magazines and paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
with social aspirations because it looked elegant and yet comfortable.
Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs. Roth and her son were icily
formal, confining themselves to the most commonplace remarks. And Julia
did not help him, as she had on his first visit. She looked pale and tired
and carefully avoided his eyes.
When he had been there about half an hour, Mrs. Roth turned to her
daughter.
“Julia,” she said, “If we are going to get to Mrs. MacDougall’s at
half-past four you must go and get ready. You will excuse her, won’t you
Mr. Delcasar?”
The girl obediently went up stairs without shaking hands, and a few
minutes later Ramon went away, feeling more of misery and less of
self-confidence than ever before in his life.
He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez brought him a report that
MacDougall had a new agent, who was working actively in Arriba County, but
he paid no attention to it. His life seemed to have lost purpose and
interest. For the first time he doubted her love. For the first time he
really feared that he would lose her.
Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking about the streets, in the
hope of catching a glimpse of her. He passed her house as often as he
dared, and studied her movements. When he saw her in the distance he felt
an acute thrill of mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet her
fairly, walking with her brother, and then she either failed to see him or
pretended not to.
One afternoon about five o’clock he left his office and started home in
his car. A storm was piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose from
behind the eastern mountains like giants peering from ambush. It was
sultry; there were loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
lightning. At this season of late summer the weather staged such a
portentous display almost every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
mountains; but the showers only reached the thirsty _mesa_ and valley
lands about one day in four.
Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering whether it would rain and
hoping that it would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for rain, and in
his present mood the rush and beat of a storm would have been especially
welcome.
His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a cold blast of wind, carrying a
few big drops, and then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up the dust
of the street and swiftly converted it into a sea of mud cut by yellow
rivulets.
As his car roared down the empty street, he glimpsed a woman standing in
the shelter of a big cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A quick
thrill shot through his body. He jammed down the brake so suddenly that
his car skidded and sloughed around. He carefully turned and brought up at
the curb.
She started at sight of him as he ran across the side-walk toward her.
“Come on quick!” he commanded, taking her by the arm, “I’ll get you home.”
Before she had time to say anything he had her in the car, and they were
driving toward the Roth house. By the time they had reached it the first
strength of the shower was spent, and there was only a light scattering
rain with a rift showing in the clouds over the mountains.
He deliberately passed the house, putting on more speed as he did so.
“But … I thought you were going to take me home,” she said, putting a hand
on his arm.
“I’m not,” he announced, without looking around. His hands and eyes were
fully occupied with his driving, but a great suspense held his breath. The
hand left his arm, and he heard her settle back in her seat with a sigh. A
great warm wave of joy surged through him.
He took the mountain road, which was a short cut between Old Town and the
mountains, seldom used except by wood wagons. Within ten minutes they were
speeding across the _mesa_. The rain was over and the clouds running
across the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before them the
rolling grey-green waste of the _mesa_, spotted and veined with silver
waters, reached to the blue rim of the mountains—empty and free as an
undiscovered world.
He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and leaned back, steering with one
hand. The other fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time they drove
along in silence, conscious only of that electrical contact, and of the
wind playing in their faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
engine.
At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and stood up, looking all about
at the vast quiet wilderness, filling his lungs with air. He liked that
serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace with these still desolate
lands that had been the background of most of his life. Now, with the
consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled him with a sort of
rapture, an ecstasy of reverence that had come down to him perhaps from
savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth Mother with love and awe.
He dropped down beside her again and without hesitation gathered her into
his arms. After a moment he held her a little away from him and looked
into her eyes.
“Why wouldn’t you let me come to see you? Why did you treat me that way?”
he plead.
She dropped her eyes.
“They made me.”
“But why? Because I’m a Mexican? And does that make any difference to
you?”
“O, I can’t tell you.… They say awful things about you. I don’t believe
them. No; nothing about you makes any difference to me.”
He held her close again.
“Then you’ll go away with me?”
“Yes,” she answered slowly, nodding her head. “I’ll go anywhere with you.”
“Now!” he demanded. “Will you go now? We can drive through Scissors Pass
to Abol on the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.…”
“O, no, not now,” she plead. “Please not now.… I can’t go like this.…”
“Yes; now,” he urged. “We’ll never have a better chance.…”
“I beg you, if you love me, don’t make me go now. I must think … and get
ready.… Why I haven’t even got any powder for my nose.”
They both laughed. The tension was broken. They were happy.
“Give me a little while to get ready,” she proposed, “and I’ll go when you
say.”
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart.… On my life and honour. Please take me home now, so they
won’t suspect anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry. It’ll be
dark pretty soon. You can write to me. It’s so lonely out here!”
He turned his car and drove slowly townward, his free hand seeking hers
again. It was dusk when they reached the streets. Stopping his car in the
shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped her out.
He sat still and watched her out of sight. A tinge of sadness and regret
crept into his mind, and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
discontent with himself. Why had he let her go? True, he had proved her
love, but now she was to be captured all over again. He ought to have
taken her. He had been a fool. She would have gone. She had begged him not
to take her, but if he had insisted, she would have gone. He had been a
fool!