“He is not a fit topic for conversation.”
“I’m sorry that our happy stay here should end in a scare.”
“I am not scared. I am thinking about the people who disappeared. Do you think that any of them were women?”
“Good Lord, no! Don’t be distressed, my dear. They were these drunken diggers from Palo Seco at the time of the gold-rush. They were just floating men. Every nation has thousands of them, who cannot settle down. They wander off to sea or to drive cattle, and they get caught in a gold-rush or stuck with a knife in a brawl, or fall off a train or something. They have a run for their money. The solid fellow sticks at home and grows fat and bald and warlike in an office. The floating life has more dash about it.”
“If you want dash,” she said, “you should give up a planet and try a comet.”
“Ramón might try a little dash. I have rung twice. He must be in now. I’ll try a third. There; he cannot say that he didn’t hear that.”
“Listen.”
“I don’t hear him in the kitchen.”
“It is odd that he should be away at this time.”
“And on this night, too, Margarita. I will see what he is up to.”