"You might fasten me here with links of rusty iron, but in my eyes they'd be a chain of gold."
"What's that?"
He startled me with the sharp eye of comprehension, and I felt myself droop under the look that he gave me. "I mean that this soft and restful air and the sweet breath of the gardens would exalt a soul in spite of the restraints of the body."
Innocence flew back to his eye, "That's good, Belford; I have felt it many a time. I have thought in moments of ambition that my talents as a Legislator were crippled here, that I might go to Congress, and perhaps make a National name for myself, but then came the idea that to broaden my scope might forever spoil my love for old Bolanyo."
He stood there meditating, with nothing more to say; he took out a small bunch of keys, looked at them and returned them to his pocket; he put his hands behind him; he went to the window and looked out upon the deliberate commerce of the town—wagons loaded with hay, carts of kindling wood, negroes with chickens, groups of story-telling countrymen.
"But I didn't know that the town could take quite so strong a hold on a stranger," he said, with his eyes in the street. "But, Belford," and now he turned to me, "you are a man of quick endearments, and so am I; and that is one of the reasons why I like you, and a reason, I might say, why I condemn myself. But I like a man or don't, almost at the start. They call me a shrewd politician, and I am, but I'm one of the easiest men taken in you ever saw. Oh, I can tell whether or not a man is a rascal, and I sometimes buy his ware knowing that I myself am sold, but I can't help it. One single note in a man's voice sometimes catches me—a little thing that he doesn't know himself. Belford, I want you to go to the State capital with me sometime, after the Legislature meets. I'll show you some of the most picturesque and genial old blatherskites you ever saw. Well, I've got some knocking around to do. See you again soon."
And it was thus that we always parted—with "See you again soon," and never with "You must come to see me." I wondered whether his daughter had warned him against the impropriety of inviting me to the house. I mused over the sharp light of comprehension in his eye, and made an additional trouble for myself with speculating upon the degree of his suspicion.
In the afternoon I walked far out beyond the limits of the town, not at first in the direction of the Senator's house, but I cut a quarter circle to the left and came upon the road that led past his gate. So self-forgetful had been my employment that I did not realize until I stepped into the shade of a cottonwood how hot it had been out on the blazing commons. On the dying grass I sat, with my feet in a gully, fanning with my hat, harvesting delicious shudders of coolness. From afar off came the hum of a thrashing machine, and almost in my ear an insect sang the melancholy tune that tells of autumn's coming. I heard the slow and heavy trot of an old horse, and around a bend in the road a buggy came, and in it a woman. I got up with my blood leaping. I stepped to the roadside and stood there, with my face turned away, and suddenly the horse fell back to a walk, in obedience to an impulsive pull upon the lines, my eager and outlawed heart had told me. I turned about. Her eyes were averted, and her face was red, and she would have passed without a word, without a look, but I stepped out boldly and cried: "Just a moment, please. The hame strap has come unbuckled."
"Oh, thank you," she said, and the horse stopped. I stepped in front and began to pull at the strap.
"Quite a surprise to see you, Mrs. Estell."