CHAPTER IX
They were happier than ever, following that adjusting episode.
Harboro felt that his place had been assigned to him, and he was satisfied. He would have to think of ways of affording diversion for Sylvia, of course; but that could be managed, and in the meantime she seemed disposed to prolong the rapturous and sufficient joys of their honeymoon. He would be on the lookout, and when the moment of reaction came he would be ready with suggestions. She had spoken of riding. There would be places to go. The bailes out at the Quemado; weddings far out in the chaparral. Many Americans attended these affairs in a spirit of adventure, and the ride was always delightful. There was a seduction in the desert winds, in the low-vaulted skies with their decorative schemes of constellations.
He was rather at a loss as to how to meet the people who had made a fellow of him. There was Dunwoodie, for example. He ran into Dunwoodie one morning on his way to work, and the good fellow had stopped him with an almost too patent friendliness.
“Come, stop long enough to have a drink,” said Dunwoodie, blushing without apparent cause and shaking Harboro awkwardly by the hand. And then, as if this blunt invitation might prove too transparent, he added: “I was in a game last night, and I’m needing one.”
There was no need for Dunwoodie to explain his desire for a drink—or his disinclination to drink alone. Harboro saw nothing out of the ordinary in the invitation; but unfortunately he responded before he had quite taken the situation into account.
“It’s pretty early for me,” he said. “Another time—if you’ll excuse me.”
It was to be regretted that Harboro’s manner seemed a trifle stiff; and Dunwoodie read uncomfortable meanings into that refusal. He never repeated the invitation; and others, hearing of the incident, concluded that Harboro was too deeply offended by what the town had done to him to care for anybody’s friendship any more. The thing that the town had done to Harboro was like an open page to everybody. Indeed, the people of Eagle Pass knew that Harboro had been counted out of eligible circles considerably before Harboro knew it himself.
As for Sylvia, contentment overspread her like incense. She was to have Harboro all to herself, and she was not to be required to run the gantlet of the town’s too-knowing eyes. She felt safe in that house on the Quemado Road, and she hoped that she now need not emerge from it until old menaces were passed, and people had come and gone, and she could begin a new chapter.
She was somewhat annoyed by her father during those days. He sent messages by Antonia. Why didn’t she come to see him? She was happy, yes. But could she forget her old father? Was she that kind of a daughter? Such was the substance of the messages which reached her.