"It is more comfortable than this"—she said, with a disparaging glance at his log dwelling.
"How do YOU know?" and he laughed again—"What have YOU ever experienced in the line of hotels? You are employed at the Plaza to fetch and carry;—to wait on the wretched invalids who come to California for a 'cure' of diseases incurable—"
"YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt.
"No! I only pretend to be!"
"Why do you pretend?"
"Oh, Manella! What a question! Why do we all pretend?—all!—every human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should go mad!"
Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly.
"I do not understand you"—she said—"Why do you talk nonsense about the sun? I suppose you ARE ill after all,—you have an illness of the head."
He nodded with mock solemnity.
"That's it! You're a wise woman, Manella! That's why I'm here. Not tubercles on the lungs,—tubercles on the brain! Oh, those tubercles! They could never stand the Plaza!—the gaiety, the brilliancy—the—the all-too dazzling social round!..." he paused, and a gleam of even white teeth under his dark moustache gave the suggestion of a smile—"That's why I stay up here."