"Miss Figuera has certainly courage," said Ormsgill slowly.
Desmond laughed. "She has. She has also a wholesome pride, and sense as well as imagination, though the two don't always go together. With her at his side a man crazy enough to be pleased with that kind of thing might set himself to straighten up half the wrongs perpetrated by our civilization, and she'd see he was never wholly beaten. Somehow, she would, at least, bring him off with honor, and that is, after all, the most any one with such notions could reasonably look for."
He stopped for a moment, and when he went on again the firelight showed the little flush in his cheeks and the gleam in his eyes.
"Lord," he said, "how little some of us are content with when we marry—a woman to sit at the head of out table, and talk prettily, one who asks for everything that isn't worth while, and sees you never do anything her friends don't consider quite fitting. Still, there is another kind, the ones who give instead of asking, and who would, for the man they loved, face the malice of the world with a smile in their eyes. I think," and he made a little vague gesture, "I have said something of the kind before, but I have to let myself go now and then. I can't help it."
"One would almost fancy you were in love with the girl yourself," said Ormsgill quietly.
Desmond leaned forward a trifle, and looked hard at him. "No. I might have been had things been different. At least, she is certainly not in love with me."
Ormsgill said nothing, but he was sensible of a curious stirring of his blood. He would not ask himself exactly what his comrade meant, or if, indeed, he meant anything in particular, for it was a consolation to remember that Desmond now and then talked inconsequently. He sat still, vacantly watching the blue smoke wreaths curl up between the palms. The boys had lain down now, and only an occasional faint rustle as one moved broke the heavy silence. Then, and, perhaps he was a trifle overwrought and fanciful, as he watched the drifting smoke wreaths a figure seemed to materialize out of them. It was filmy and unsubstantial, etherealized by the moonlight, but it grew plainer, and once more he saw Benicia Figuera as he had talked with her in the shady patio. She seemed to be looking at him with reposeful eyes that had nevertheless a little glint in the depths of them, and now the desire to see her in the flesh took him by the throat and shook the resolution out of him. At last he knew. There could no longer be any brushing of disconcerting facts aside. There was one woman in the world whom he desired, and he had pledged himself to marry another one. Still, his duty remained, and he sat silent with one lean hand closed tightly and the lines on his worn face deepening until at last he became conscious that Desmond was watching him, and he roused himself with an effort.
"Well," he said quietly, "she has laid me under a heavy obligation, but we have other things to talk of."