Just like the sparrow, darting from bough to bough! He answered, gravely, that they certainly used a dictionary of their own! He had been to a meeting of the water companies, up at Imperial the other day. He turned to his host. “The fluency of some of those men surprised me!”
“We’re not all dubs!” gruffed Hardin.
Gerty swept up her ruffles; her laugh sounded hard instead of gay. It was a kindness for a newcomer to bring in a breath of fresh air from the outside. They did get stale, they couldn’t help it.
Rickard remembered that he had to get back to his hotel. He had letters to write. It had been a splendid dinner! And what a wonderful home she had made out of a sand-baked lot, out of a tent! He spoke of the roses and the morning-glories. His eyes fell on the open piano, the reading table with the current magazines. Now, he couldn’t understand why they ever went to that hotel!
Gerty’s eyes were shining as deep pools of water on which the sun plays. She looked almost infantile as she stood by the two tall men, her head perched bird-like. “Good-by! and I hope you’ll come again!”
Of course he’d come again!
“And you will let me know when you return, so that I may set the date for my party?”
Innes did not get his answer. She had been observing that he was not taller than her brother. He looked taller. He was lean, and Tom was growing stocky. She wished he would not slouch so, his hands in his pockets! In Tucson, before she knew that she must dislike Rickard, she had had an impression of virile distinction, of grace, a suggestion of mastered muscles. He had known that it was her brother he was supplanting—did he get any satisfaction from the fact that it was the husband of the woman who had jilted him? Anyway, she did not like him. She could never forgive a hurt that was done to her own. She was a Hardin.
“Innes! Mr. Rickard said good night!”
She gave him the tips of her cool browned fingers. Her eyes did not meet his; she would not meet that laughing scrutiny.