Sax threw both arms in the air. "For God's sake, and for both our sakes, Henry, don't quiddle with courtesy—slam out with it! I've lost all right to consideration—you can only give me self-respect by showing you believe me man enough to hear what you have to say."
That slow smile lit up Perez's eyes. "Quite right, Arthur," he said. "'Me he equivocado'—this, then: If you restrain yourself, like the volcano, will you not break out somewhere new?"
"Not so long as I keep my grip on facts: I'm safe when I can say, 'I'm getting crazy again.' The saying restores my sanity. Having no one to say it to, I run amuck."
"You have that friend," said Perez. He stopped a minute. "I would not have you hold yourself, if that would do you harm, Arthur; but now I say, take yourself in the hand strong, for of my life the bitterest time was when you raised your arm at me."
Saxton's face jerked and then grew still. "Come, boys!" he said, rolling a handful of cigars on the table. "Smoke."
I never saw any one who could get himself and friends in and out of trouble like Saxton. In five minutes we were laughing and talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. That's what I call strength of mind. It wasn't that Sax couldn't feel if he let himself, Heaven knows. It was that he could shut down so tight, when roused to it, that he wouldn't feel, nor you, neither.
At the same time there was a pity for him aching at the bottom of my heart, and when Perez and I left him to walk home together a remark Perez made started the Great Scheme into operation.
"The girl must care for him," said Perez. "His erraticality! Bah! What woman cares for that, so long that the strangeness is in the way of feeling, and not in the way of non-feeling? Women desire that their admirer shall be of some romance. And with that beautiful poet face; the fine manner; the grace of body and of mind—that unusual beautiful which is he and no other—you tell me that any woman shall see that lay at her feet and not be moved? Tonteria! I believe it not. When the story of that other woman arrived to Señorita Maria's ear what is it she feel? The religious abhorrence? The violation of taste? Perhaps, but much more a thing she does not know herself, that monster of the green eye, called Jealousy—believe me, Señor Saunders, the man who look sees more of the play. It is so. Mees Mary may feel bad in many way, but when she will listen to the explanation not at all, her worst feel bad is jealousy."
I don't want to lay claim for myself as a great student of mankind, yet ideas to that effect had begun to peek around the corner of my skull. It seemed to me that Mary felt altogether too hot sorry and not enough resigned sorry for it to be a case of friendly interest.
"I guess you're right, Mr. Perez," said I, "and if we could only get Sax to bust through her ideas, as I busted through his to-day—"