It did not occur to him to mention what had happened that afternoon to the girl. That had been a matter too purely personal to permit its discussion with another. While he talked to her, his mind was wholly occupied with thoughts other than those of which he spoke and he did not see that the waitress was studying him carefully, reading what was written on his face. Nora knew that Ann was gone; she knew that she had taken with her a new conviction, a new courage, and the fact that Bayard had left her at his ranch, probably with Ned Lytton, puzzled the girl.
Bruce was not certain that he had acted wisely. Many circumstances might arise in which his presence at the ranch could be a determining factor. At times he wondered vaguely if Lytton might not attempt to do his wife violence, but always he comforted himself by assurance of her strength of character, of her moral fiber, contrasting it with Ned's vacillating nature.
"She'd take care of herself anywhere," he thought time after time.
When he had gone through with the formal routine of feeding himself he went out to stroll about. He watched the train arrive and depart, he talked absently with an Indian he knew and jested with the red man's squaw. He bought a Los Angeles paper and could not center his mind on a line of its printed pages. He walked aimlessly, finally entering the saloon where a dozen were congregated.
"That piano of yours has got powerful lungs, ain't it?" he asked the bartender, wincing, as the mechanical instrument banged out its measure.
"This here beer's so hot it tastes like medicine," he complained, putting down his glass after his first swallow, and picking up the bottle to look at it with a wry face.
"It's right off th' ice," the other assured.
"You can have th' rest of it for th' deservin' poor," he said and strode out, while the others laughed after him.
Up and down the street, into the general store to exchange absent-minded pleasantries with the proprietor's wife, across to the hotel where he tried to sit quietly in a chair, back to the saloon; up and down, up and down.