“That—that desert!”
“There’s desert both ways—all ways. The other road puts an extra week between you and me.”
“Yes, yes. I have counted.”
“What is all this, Lolita?”
Once more she hesitated, smiling uneasily beneath his scrutiny. “Yo no se” (I don’t know). “You will laugh. You do not believe the things that I believe. The Tinaja Bonita—”
“That again!”
“Yes,” she half whispered. “I am afraid.”
He looked at her steadily.
“Return the same road by Tucson,” she urged. “That way is only half so much desert, and you can carry water from Poso Blanco. Do not trust the Coyote Wells. They are little and shallow, and if the Black Cross—Oh, my darling, if you do not believe, do this for me because you love me, love me!”
He did not speak at once. The two had risen, and stood by the open door, where the dawn was entering and mixing with the lamp. “Because I love you,” he repeated at length, slowly, out of his uncertain thoughts.