“No; I reckon I’ll lay out here. It’s cooler.” He did not acknowledge to himself his fear of sniffing the spirituous odors.
“All right, only don’t roll off.” The correspondent paused on his way back to the ladder. “Say! did your friend mean what he said? Or was it just talk?”
When Bull answered with a sketch of Benson’s violent temper, illustrated by a few instances, the correspondent shook his head. “Well, don’t let him see Valles alone.” Going down the ladder, he called back, “If you should change your mind about the drink, you’ll find the jug on the table.”
Instantly it materialized in Bull’s vision, a round stone jug and glasses, as solid and real as though it stood within the reach of his hand. Nor could he shut out the vision, as he had the odor, by burying his face. With the cars swinging and swaying through the night, shut out, it stood forth clearer than ever. He saw himself snatching out the cork; felt the burning liquid coursing down his throat.
“My God! why did I come? I’ll never be able to stan’ it!”
The thought of the temptation, ever present, growing more powerful through the coming days, gaining in strength while he grew weaker, brought out of him a cry of dismay: “I’ll never be able to stan’ it!” Then, very quickly, “I’ll have to! If I don’t—then I’m no fit man for her!”
The thought brought her face again in all its sweet wholesomeness. Through the warm dusk, as it were beside him, he saw her hand fluttering like a homing dove into his. He felt it lifting, raising him above his temptation. The memory of its soft pressures strengthened and comforted. Presently his fingers relaxed their convulsive grip on the running-board. Exhausted, he fell asleep.
[XXVIII: A “REQUISITION”]
Slipping in over the patio wall, a golden sunbeam struck behind where Gordon sat writing and flooded the portales with topaz lights. From the kitchen came the soft spat, spat of tortillas in the course of shapement between Teresa’s palms, competing splash and flop of Maria’s cloth as she washed off the brown-tiled floor. No other sound disturbed the morning freshness, for Gordon had risen early to get off a letter with Lovell, who had dropped in last night on his way to El Paso to attend Phœbe’s wedding.
So engrossed was he that a gentle agitation of the sheet which hung across Lee’s bedroom doorway on the gallery above passed unnoticed. The rail hid from his view the small, bare feet, but he missed a glimpse of white shoulder, flash of brown eyes under her hair’s bright tousle, round, red mouth opened in a yawn before, seeing him, she hastily dropped the sheet. He did not see her even when she came out in kimono and slippers and soft-footed it down the stone stairs at his back. Though, sitting up on her heels, Maria looked on smiling, Gordon’s first notice came from the soft palms that slipped over his eyes.