CHAPTER XXI
A MORNING RIDE
INNES was loping toward the Wistaria, the wind in her face till she turned west by the canal. It occurred to her then, that she did not know how she was going to cross the river; it cut the canal; that was the cut which was threatening that district. She had not thought to ask Parrish whether they boated it across, or if there was a cable across the stream. She would not turn back, she would meet some one.
She was a part of a fleeing universe; the wind, the dust-clouds, the victorious racing river, her good horse loping free—herself on the edge of the mad wild world! Because she was young, and life was dramatic to her, the wind took possession of her spirit, which spread its wings toward the broad sweep of moving plains, to the sharp jagged line of dust-obscured mountain. The conflict of Titans called to her; it was a great music drama; the wind had its own wild rôle; the river, the fervid lover, and the desert a lean, brown Indian maid resisting his ardor. The Valkyrie’s call burst from her. She was riding to it; she threw the five splendid notes against the shriek of the elemental battle.
Desperate pygmies, all of them; ants, protecting their little ant-hill against Titans—Ogilvie in his tent, Eggers a prisoner to fear—the women planting their little trees, the men defending their toy levee against the Dragon and the strength of its ravished mate; absurd, impotent the weak human effort! Had she caught Estrada’s feeling? She had taxed him often with skepticism. True, he has not answered her, except with those truthful, melancholy eyes of his!
Queer, that reserve—with her, when she knew what she knew! What had given her the conviction that he did not want to tell her that he cared? Why did he guard his lips, when his eyes, his mind cried out to her, not only when she was with him, but in the night, when all the world slept, and he miles from her, his need wakening her, chaining, was it imagination, or was this—Love? His affection deeper than all the others, and he the only one she did not have to remind,—continually remind!—of their soldiery.
Good soldiers!
Had she been too quick to take offense that morning? Could she expect that he—Mr. Rickard—could not see the failings she herself feared? Tom was splendid, heroic, yes, but a good soldier? The other had taken a soldier’s drilling—Eduardo had told her of Wyoming, and the Mexican barrancas—Tom was unjust in that—unjust to Marshall. Rickard was not a bookman. Even if she did not like him—!
She saw Busby, who was driving away from the Wistaria.
She hailed him. “Tell me,” she called. “How do you get over?”
“They’ve strung a cable. Looking for Mrs. Parrish?”