She had not known that she had such feeling as the thought roused in her. It proved what the blood tie is, this tigerish passion sweeping through her, as her eyes watched that closed tent—it was love for Tom, pity for Tom. Sex honor, why, Gerty did not know the meaning of the words! Were she not a harem woman, a cheap little vain thing, she would not be flirting in a time like this—getting on the track with her coquetries.
She pulled herself away from her wire-netting window, and took up her pen. What had she been writing about? “They are working steadily on the permanent concrete gate, and pushing the wooden gate to control the autumn floods—” How long would it be before Tom would see what every one else was seeing? What would he do when he knew? Hating Rickard already, bitter as he was—
She was not so biased as he. She could see why Marshall had had to reorganize, or Faraday, whoever it was who had done it. Estrada had shown her; and MacLean. Her sense of justice had done the rest. Rickard had proved his efficiency; the levee, the camp, the military discipline all showed the general. Whether he were anything of an engineer, time would tell that. MacLean thought so, and Eduardo, but the others did not, the older engineers, hot-headed for Tom. It was a long call he was making!
Where had she left off? “The wooden gate—” her letter as wooden! And how could she vitalize it without telling the personal history which was animating the endeavor into drama? Her brother, Mr. Marshall, the new manager— Suppose Tom were to come back? She must watch for him—make some excuse to pull him in if he should come back before that other went— Hateful, such eavesdropping! A prisoner to that man’s gallivanting!
For an instant she did not recognize the figure outside Gerty’s tent. Her fears saw Tom. She reached the screen door in time to see Rickard lift his hat to a disappearing flurry of ruffles.
She had seen the ruffles, but she could not see the distress behind that swiftly shut door. Angry eyes watched Rickard’s step swing him toward Ling’s mesquits. She was still standing, her brown hands tightly laced, when he emerged, and swung toward his ramada.
How much later was it that he came out again into that wash of sunlight, followed by MacLean, who had his absorbed look on that was almost adoration? How long had she been standing there? After they had gone, she would take a walk. The letter could wait till the morning.
From the levee that day, she had a glimpse of the Mexican woman on her knees by the river, rubbing clothes against a smooth stone. A pile of tight-wrung socks lay on the bank. Innes stood and watched her.
“I must remember to speak of her to Gerty,” she determined. “She probably does not know that there is a washerwoman in camp.”
Then she speedily forgot about it; forgot even her anger of the afternoon. The skinners driving their mules over the hot sands, the mattress weavers twisting willows through the steel cables, the pile-drivers pinning down the gigantic carpet as it was woven to the treacherous bed of that river, the Indians cutting arrow-weed, that dredge-arm swinging low—the diversified panorama caught her as it always did.