“Don’t be lonely, girl. The world is full of pleasant things, just waiting to pop out at you from behind every bush. If you’re good and kind and honest with life, the Fates are going to give you the best they’ve got. Don’t be lonely! Just wait for the pleasant things in to-morrow and to-morrow––in all the to-morrows. And one of them, girl, is going to show you the sweetest thing in life. That’s love, you girl with the tears back of your Scotch blue eyes. But wait for it––and take the little pleasant things that minutes have hidden away in the to-morrows. And one of the pleasant times will be hidden at Cottonwood Spring, a week from Friday night. Wonder what it will be, girl. And if any one tries to tell it, put your hands over your ears, so that you won’t hear it. Wait––and keep wondering, and come to Cottonwood Spring next Friday night. Adios, girl.”
He looked into her eyes, smiling a little. Then, turning suddenly, he left her without a backward glance. Left her with nothing to spoil the haunting cadence of his voice, nothing to lift the spell of tender prophecy his words had laid upon her soul. When he was quite gone, when she heard the clatter of his horse’s hoofs upon the arid soil that surrounded the Whipple shack, Mary Hope still stared out through the open doorway, seeing nothing of the March barrenness, seeing only the 143 tender, inscrutable, tantalizing face of Lance Lorrigan,––tantalizing because she could not plumb the depths of his eyes, could not say how much of the tenderness was meant for her, how much was born of the deep music of his voice, the whimsical, one-sided smile.
And Lance, when he had ridden a furlong from the place, had dipped into a shallow draw and climbed the other side, turned half around in the saddle and looked back.
“Now, why did I go off and leave her like that? Like an actor walking off the stage to make room for the other fellow to come on and say his lines. There’s no other fellow––thank heck! And here are two miles we might be riding together––and me preaching to her about taking the little, pleasant things that come unexpectedly!” He swung his horse around in the trail, meaning to ride back; retraced his steps as far as the hollow, and turned again, shaking his head.
“Anybody could stop at the schoolhouse just as school’s out, and ride a couple of miles down the road with the schoolma’am––if she let him do it! Anybody could do that. But that isn’t the reason, why I’m riding on ahead. What the hell is the reason?”
He stopped again on the high level where he could look back and see the Whipple shack squatted forlornly in the gray stretch of sage with wide, brown patches of dead grass between the bushes.
“Lonesome,” he named the wild expanse of unpeopled range land. “She’s terribly lonely––and sweet. Too lonely and sweet for me to play with, to ride a few miles with––and leave her lonelier than I found her. I couldn’t. There’s enough sadness now in those Scotch blue eyes. Damned if I’ll add more!”
He saw Mary Hope come from the shack, pause a minute on the doorstep, then walk out to where her horse was tied to the post. He lifted the reins, pricked his horse gently with the spurs and galloped away to Jumpoff, singing no more.