The sharp and apparently impossible contrasts, the magic illusions of color made it a land of remote enchantment, even to the most unimaginative. And to Hanson the world outside became as unreal as a dream that is past. Here was beauty, and the wide, free spaces of nature, where every law of man seemed puny, ineffectual and void. In this unbounded, uncharted freedom the shackles of conventionality fell from him. Here was life and here was love. He was a primitive man, and here, before him in visible form, stood the world's desire. Barriers there were none. A man and woman, both as vital as the morning, and love between them. The craving heart of the eternal man rose up in Hanson, imperatively urging him to claim his own.
He drew his hand across his brow almost dazedly. "Whew!" he muttered, "I kind of remember when I was a kid that my mother used to tell me about the Garden of Eden. I thought it was a pipe dream, but, George! it's true—it's true, and I can't quite believe it."
The Pearl stood leaning against a great palm tree. She seemed hardly to hear him. Her eyes were on the waving, shimmering horizon line of the desert. Her face held a sort of wistful dreaming.
"'The Garden of Eden!'" she repeated. "I've heard of it, too. It was a place where you were always happy, but"—still wistfully—"I haven't found that place yet." She turned her vaguely troubled eyes on him and then sighed and drooped against the tree.
"You can have things as you please, if you'll come to me." His speech was rapid, hard-breathing; it was as if he hardly knew what he was saying, but was talking merely to relieve the tension. "I'm boss and I can manage that you shall dance when you please, and come back here for a little breathing spell whenever you want. But," with an impatient gesture, "I ain't here to talk business. That's what I came to Paloma for—business. That's all I was before I met you, just a cold, hard business proposition. I guess I was pretty hard-headed. They seemed to think so in my line, anyway. I thought I knew it all." He gave a short laugh. "I'm not so young. I thought I knew life pretty well—had kind of wore it out, in fact. I thought I'd loved more than one woman; but I know now that I've never loved, never lived before, that I've just woke up, here in this Garden of Eden.
"Pearl," the beads of sweat stood out on his brow, "I ain't made you out. I know you're one thing one hour and another the next. I'm no vain boy. I can't tell whether you've been drawing me on one minute and holding me back the next just because you got to annex the scalp of every man your sweet eyes fall on. That's all right, honey, I ain't blaming you; but there's been moments lately, Pearl, when I've thought that maybe you might care, moments when I been plumb crazy with joy. You ain't let 'em last very long, honey," with a strained smile, "but they most made up for the black question mark that came after 'em." He drew out his handkerchief and wiped his wet brow with a trembling hand.
She threw back her head and smiled into his eyes through her narrowed lids. She held out her hands to him; and with one step Hanson lifted her clear off the ground, gathering her up in his arms, holding her against his heart and kissing her scarlet mouth.
And she wound her arms about his neck and returned those kisses.
"Put me down," she said at last, and Hanson did so, although he still held her close to his heart with one arm.
"Pearl!" he cried aloud, and it was like some strong affirmation of life. He lifted his eyes, bold and unafraid, as an eagle's, to the sun-flooded, brazen, blue heavens. Time stood still. He had drunk at a new fountain—love, and, although his thirst was still unquenched, he was eternal youth. The heart of life breathed through him. He looked upon the sky, a man unconquered, unbeaten, undaunted by life. He was its master. Did she ask the snow peaks yonder? He would gather them as footstools for her little feet. Was it gold she desired? It should be as dust for her hands to scatter to the winds. Was it name, place, state, she asked? They should be plucked forthwith from a supine world and offered her as a nosegay.