Yet he saw little more than a ghost of her vivacity, and never a gleam of that individuality which Belding had called a devil.
On the few occasions that **** had been left alone with her in the patio Nell had grown suddenly unresponsive and restrained, or she had left him on some transparent pretext.
On the last occasion Mercedes returned to find **** staring disconsolately at the rose-bordered path, where Nell had evidently vanished. The Spanish girl was wonderful in her divination.
"Senor ****!" she cried.
**** looked at her, soberly nodded his head, and then he laughed.
Mercedes had seen through him in one swift glance. Her white hand touched his in wordless sympathy and thrilled him. This Spanish girl was all fire and passion and love. She understood him, she was his friend, she pledged him what he felt would be the most subtle and powerful influence.
Little by little he learned details of Nell's varied life. She had lived in many places. As a child she remembered moving from town to town, of going to school among schoolmates whom she never had time to know. Lawrence, Kansas, where she studied for several years, was the later exception to this changeful nature of her schooling. Then she moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, from there to Austin, Texas, and on to Waco, where her mother met and married Belding. They lived in New Mexico awhile, in Tucson, Arizona, in Douglas, and finally had come to lonely Forlorn River.
"Mother could never live in one place any length of time," said Nell. "And since we've been in the Southwest she has never ceased trying to find some trace of her father. He was last heard of in Nogales fourteen years ago. She thinks grandfather was lost in the Sonora Desert....And every place we go is worse. Oh, I love the desert. But I'd like to go back to Lawrence--or to see Chicago or New York--some of the places Mr. Gale speaks of....
I remember the college at Lawrence, though I was only twelve.
I saw races--and once real football. Since then I've read magazines and papers about big football games, and I was always fascinated ....Mr. Gale, of course, you've seen games?
"Yes, a few," replied ****; and he laughed a little. It was on his lips then to tell her about some of the famous games in which he had participated. But he refrained from exploiting himself.
There was little, however, of the color and sound and cheer, of the violent action and rush and battle incidental to a big college football game that he did not succeed in ****** Mercedes and Nell feel just as if they had been there. They hung breathless and wide-eyed upon his words.
Some one else was present at the latter part of ****'s narrative.
The moment he became aware of Mrs. Belding's presence he remembered fancying he had heard her call, and now he was certain she had done so. Mercedes and Nell, however, had been and still were oblivious to everything except ****'s recital. He saw Mrs. Belding cast a strange, intent glance upon Nell, then turn and go silently through the patio. **** concluded his talk, but the brilliant beginning was not sustained.
**** was haunted by the strange expression he had caught on Mrs.
Belding's face, especially the look in her eyes. It had been one of repressed pain liberated in a flash of certainty. The mother had seen just as quickly as Mercedes how far he had gone on the road of love. Perhaps she had seen more--even more than he dared hope. The incident roused Gale. He could not understand Mrs.
Belding, nor why that look of hers, that seeming baffled, hopeless look of a woman who saw the inevitable forces of life and could not thwart them, should cause him perplexity and distress. He wanted to go to her and tell her how he felt about Nell, but fear of absolute destruction of his hopes held him back. He would wait.
Nevertheless, an instinct that was perhaps akin to self-preservation prompted him to want to let Nell know the state of his mind.
Words crowded his brain seeking utterance. Who and what he was, how he loved her, the work he expected to take up soon, his longings, hopes, and plans--there was all this and more. But something checked him. And the repression made him so thoughtful and quiet, even melancholy, that he went outdoors to try to throw off the mood.
The sun was yet high, and a dazzling white light enveloped valleys and peaks. He felt that the wonderful sunshine was the dominant feature of that arid region. It was like white gold. It had burned its color in a face he knew. It was going to warm his blood and brown his skin. A hot, languid breeze, so dry that he felt his lips shrink with its contact, came from the desert; and it seemed to smell of wide-open, untainted places where sand blew and strange, pungent plants gave a bitter-sweet tang to the air.
When he returned to the house, some hours later, his room had been put in order. In the middle of the white coverlet on his table lay a fresh red rose. Nell had dropped it there. **** picked it up, feeling a throb in his breast. It was a bud just beginning to open, to show between its petals a dark-red, unfolding heart.
How fragrant it was, how exquisitely delicate, how beautiful its inner hue of red, deep and dark, the crimson of life blood!
Had Nell left it there by accident or by intent? Was it merely kindness or a girl's subtlety? Was it a message couched elusively, a symbol, a hope in a half-blown desert rose?