"So they both declared. Why did you let Panfilo go?"
"We didn't need him here, and he was too good a man to lose, so--" Ed
found his wife's eyes fixed upon him, and dropped his own. "I knew you
were short-handed at La Feria." There was an interval of silence, then
Ed exclaimed, testily, "What are you looking at?"
"I wondered what you'd say."
"Eh? Can't I fire a man without a long-winded explanation?" Something
in Alaire's expression warned him of her suspicion; therefore he took
refuge behind an assumption of anger. "My God! Don't I have a word to
say about my own ranch? Just because I've let you run things to suit
yourself--"
"Wait! We had our understanding." Alaire's voice was low and vibrant.
"It was my payment for living with you, and you know it. You gave me
the reins to Las Palmas so that I'd have something to do, something to
live for and think about, except--your actions. The ranch has doubled
in value, every penny is accounted for, and you have more money to
spend on yourself than ever before. You have no reason to complain."
Austin crushed his napkin into a ball and flung it from him; with a
scowl he shoved himself back from the table.
"It was an idiotic arrangement, just the same. I agreed because I was
sick. Dad thought I was all shot to pieces. But I'm all right now and
able to run my own business."
"Nevertheless, it was a bargain, and it will stand. If your father were
alive he'd make you live up to it."
"Hell! You talk as if I were a child," shouted her husband; and his
plump face was apoplectic with rage. "The title is in my name. How
could he make me do anything?"
"Nobody could force you," his wife said, quietly. "You are still enough
of a man to keep your word, I believe, so long as I observe my part of
our bargain?"
Ed, slightly mollified, agreed. "Of course I am; I never welched. But I
won't be treated as an incompetent, and I'm tired of these eternal
wrangles and jangles."
"You HAVE welched."
"Eh?" Austin frowned belligerently.
"You agreed to go away when you felt your appetite coming on, and you
promised to live clean, at least around home."
"Well?"
"Have you done it?"
"Certainly. I never said I'd cut out the booze entirely."
"What about your carousals at Brownsville?"