His voice broke a bit under the blow his astonishing male vanity had received. And who was she, an orphan, to hold herself so high, when here was an honest man, a Texan, like himself?
Suddenly he reached out a lean brown hand. Her beauty was too much for him. The girl shrank, caught a cupped hand against her temple, where lay still the illicit kiss of the dark.
“No! No! You must not! No! I need some one, yes. I do! But I can’t——”
“I kin wait, Miss Taisie. I allowed to wait till we’d sold yore cows. I just thought things had broke so maybe it’d be best if I didn’t wait.”
“Wait!” was all she could say.
Torn and unhappy, she bent her bright head once more. He was man enough to go away. When he was gone she reflected that he had been man enough to come.
And thereafter, in yet more wretched self-searching, she reasoned that, after all, her fate now had cast her into a world where a woman’s range of choice was very narrow. After all, who was she, to ask the fulfillment of the old dream of human happiness? She sought comfort in philosophy. It is poor comfort for a woman.
CHAPTER XVIII
FLOTSAM
THE morning advanced. The riders had begun to reassert the dominance of man and horse over horned kine. Band joining band, converging, controlled, the approaching dust clouds seemed to show that ruin had not been complete; that the salvage was larger than an inexperienced man would have hoped.
“They got anyways a thousand head there,” said Dalhart to the cook. He swung into saddle and rode out, meeting Nabours, who came ahead, throwing up a hand.