A shadow fell upon his face. “I’d miss something—I don’t know what it is—that no other place has ever given me. Why do you talk as if I were going away from it? I’m not.”
“Oh, yes; you are,” she laughed softly. “It is so written. I’m a seeress.” She turned from the door and threw herself into a chair.
“What will take me?”
“Something inside you. Something unawakened. ‘Something lost beyond the ranges.’ You’ll know, and you’ll obey it.”
“Shall I ever come back, O seeress?”
At the question her eyes grew dreamy and distant. Her voice when she spoke sank to a low-pitched monotone.
“Yes, you’ll come back. Sometime.... So shall I ... not for years ... but—” She jumped to her feet. “What kind of rubbish am I talking?” she cried with forced merriment. “Is your tobacco drugged with hasheesh, Ban?”
He shook his head. “It’s the pull of the desert,” he murmured. “It’s caught you sooner than most. You’re more responsive, I suppose; more sens—Why, Butterfly! You’re shaking.”
“A Scotchman would say that I was ‘fey.’ Ban, do you think it means that I’m coming back here to die?” She laughed again. “If I were fated to die here, I expect that I missed my good chance in the smash-up. Fortunately I’m not superstitious.”
“There might be worse places,” said he slowly. “It is the place that would call me back if ever I got down and out.” He pointed through the window to the distant, glowing purity of the mountain peak. “One could tell one’s troubles to that tranquil old god.”