But a score of times Inza Burrage detected him watching her or flashing her a strange, quick glance.
She was standing alone by the rail at the edge of the veranda when she heard a soft step and felt a presence at her side.
“You seem enchanted, señorita,” said Del Norte, in a low tone. “I do not wonder. Yet, do you know, for all the beauties I see spread out before me there is something in the scene that reminds me of death.”
“Death?”
She shrank away involuntarily, looking at him with startled eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “that is what I meant to say. After climbing the path I made a little exploration. I found certain precipices over which it would be almost certain death for one to fall. I keep thinking of these precipices. Strange I cannot forget them.”
“But we see none of them from here, so why should the scene remind you of death?”
“You see none of them distinctly, but there’s one down yonder, señorita. You might walk out to the verge of it without going so very far. But it was not of these things I meant to speak when I said the scene reminded me of death. I was thinking what it must look like in the bleak winter. I was thinking how repellant this must be when buried deep under snow and ice. And I thank my fate that I was not born to such a land. I thank my fate that I am a child of the sweet land of Mexico, where flowers bloom and birds sing the whole year round. I say I thank my fate that this fortune was mine, but even as I say it I curse my fate that a great misfortune is also mine.”
“A misfortune, señor?”
“Yes, the greatest that may be known to a man with a poet’s soul like mine. The greatest that may come to him whose heart burns always with living fire as my heart burns within me.”