Boorish, all of it, and blundering! Why wouldn’t he go? When he had hurt her so! had hurt her so!
Her hand met his, but not her eyes. If he did not go quickly, something would happen; he would see her crying. The angels that guard blunderers got Rickard out of the tent without a suspicion of threatening tears. She threw off her negligee and the pale blue slip; the tears must wait for that. Then she flung herself on her bed, and shook it with the grief of wounded vanity.
MacLean looked up as Rickard reentered the office.
“It went all right,” nodded his chief, cheerful now that was out of the way. “She didn’t mind. Tired of it already, I guess.”
MacLean looked at him thoughtfully. Funny for as keen a man as Rickard to be a dolt about women. No woman would forgive that; Gerty’s kind of women. Mind! Mind being turned down? He’d find out later what she thought about it. That was his blind side. And she’d been throwing herself at him ever since she came to the Heading. Everybody had seen it—hold on, everybody did not include Rickard, himself. MacLean, Jr., softly whistled.
That evening, the chief had a visitor. The wife of Maldonado, some of the fear pressed out of her eyes, brought in his laundered khakis, socks, darned and matched; all the missing buttons replaced.
“I haven’t worn a matched sock,” he told her, “for months. That’s great, señora.”
He wanted to get to bed, but she lingered. She wanted to talk to him about her troubles; he had cautioned her against talking about them in camp, so she overflowed to him whenever she found a chance; about Maldonado, the children; Lupe. It was getting wearying; but he could not shove the poor thing out. She wanted him to say again that Maldonado could not harm her. He reminded her of the solution; she could leave him.
“And go to hell! Oh, no, never would I do that. It would be a mortal sin.”
Rickard stretched. He had to be up early in the morning.