Dave lifted an abstracted gaze from the Pullman carpet. "I hardly know
what I mean, Judge. But you've had hunches, haven't you? Didn't you
ever KNOW that something you thought was true wasn't true at all? Well,
I never felt as if I had Frank Law's blood in me."
"This is interesting!" Ellsworth stirred and leaned forward. "Whatever
made you doubt it, Dave?"
"Um-m. Nothing definite. That's what's so unsatisfactory. But, for
instance, my mother was Mexican---"
"Spanish."
"All right. Am I Spanish? Have I any Spanish blood in me?"
"She didn't look Spanish. She was light-complexioned, for one thing. We
both know plenty of people with a Latin strain in them who look like
Anglo-Saxons. Isn't there anything else?"
"Nothing I can lay my finger on, except some kid fancies and--that
hunch I spoke about."
Ellsworth sat back with a deep breath. "You were educated in the North,
and your boyhood was spent at school and college, away from everything
Mexican."
"That probably accounts for it," Law agreed; then his face lit with a
slow smile. "By the way, don't tell Mrs. Austin that I'm a sort of
college person. She thinks I'm a red-neck, and she sends me books."
Ellsworth laughed silently. "Your talk is to blame, Dave. Has she sent
you The Swiss Family Robinson?"
"No. Mostly good, sad romances with an uplift--stories full of lances
at rest, and Willie-boys in tin sweaters. Life must have been mighty
interesting in olden days, there was so much loving and killing going
on. The good women were always beautiful, too, and the villains never
had a redeeming trait. It's a shame how human nature has got mixed up
since then, isn't it? There isn't a 'my-lady' in all those books who
could bust a cow-pony or run a ranch like Las Palmas. Say, Judge, how'd
you like to have to live with a perfect lady?"
"Don't try your damned hog-Latin on me," chided the lawyer. "Alaire
Austin's romance is sadder than any of those novels."
Dave nodded. "But she doesn't cry about it." Then he asked, gravely:
"Why didn't she pick a real fellow, who'd kneel and kiss the hem of her
dress and make a man of himself? That's what she wants--love and
sacrifice, and lots of both. If I were Ed Austin I'd wear her glove in
my bosom and treat her like those queens in the stories. Incense and
adoration and---"
"What's the matter with you?" queried the judge.
"I guess I'm lonesome."
"Are you smitten with that girl?"
Dave laughed. "Maybe! Who wouldn't be? Why doesn't she divorce that
bum--she could do it easy enough--and then marry a chap who could run
Las Palmas for her?"
"A man about six feet three or four," acidly suggested the judge.
"That's the picture I have in mind."
"You think you could run Las Palmas?"
"I wouldn't mind trying."
"Really?"
"Foolish question number three."
"You must never marry," firmly declared the older man. "You'd make a
bad husband, Dave."
"She ought to know how to get along with a bad husband, by this time."
Both men had been but half serious. Ellsworth knew his companion's
words carried no disrespect; nevertheless, he said, gravely:
"If you ever think of marrying I want you to come to me. Promise?"
"I'll do it--on the way back from church."
"No. On the way to church. I'll have something to tell you."
"Tell me now," urged Law.
"There's nothing to tell, yet."
"I'll have no old ruffians kissing my brand-new bride," Dave averred.
The judge's face broadened in a smile. "Thank Heaven 'Young Ed' has the
insides of a steel range, and so my pet client is safe from your
mercenary schemes for some years. Just the same, if you ever do think
of marrying--remember--I want you to come to me--and I'll cure you."