She seemed unwilling to meet his eyes. “I believe some women get their dresses made over there, and wear them back to this side—so they needn’t pay any duty. That is, if they’re to be handsome dresses.”
“Well, this is going to be a handsome dress.”
She seemed pleased, undeniably; yet she changed the subject with evident relief. “Antonia will be cross if we don’t go right down. And you must remember to praise the enchalades. She’s tried with them ever so hard.” This wasn’t an affectation on Sylvia’s part. She was a good-hearted girl.
“It’s to be a handsome dress,” repeated Harboro an hour later, when they had returned to the balcony. It was dusk now, and little tapers of light were beginning to burn here and there in the desert: small, open fires where Mexican women were cooking their suppers of dried goat’s meat and frijoles.
Said Sylvia: “If only.... Does it matter so much to you that they should invite us?”
“It matters to me on your account. Such things are yours by right. You wouldn’t be happy always with me alone. We must think of the future.”
Sylvia took his hand and stroked it thoughtfully. There were moments when she hungered for a bit of the comedy of life: laughter and other youthful noises. The Mexican bailes and their humble feasts were delightful; and the song of the violins, and the odor of smoke, and the innocent rivalries, and the night air. But the Mesquite Club....
“If only we could go on the way we are,” she said finally, with a sigh of contentment—and regret.
CHAPTER V
Harboro insisted upon her going across the river with him the next day, a Sunday. It was now late in October, but you wouldn’t have realized it unless you had looked at the calendar. The sun was warm—rather too warm. The air was extraordinarily clear. It was an election year and the town had been somewhat disorderly the night before. Harboro and Sylvia had heard the noises from their balcony: singing, first, and then shouting. And later drunken Mexicans had ridden past the house and on out the Quemado Road. A Mexican who is the embodiment of taciturnity when afoot, will become a howling organism when he is mounted.