Alone beside the field as the moon rose she had wavered in doubt; but the answer came now with perfect assurance.
"Most surely."
"So am I," he said. "Good-night."
But before he turned she put out her hand to touch his violin—her fingers touched his hand instead.
"Please—just once more," she asked.
He laughed whimsically as he sat down on the box and drew the bow.
"I'm proud of the human race," he said, "that fights for bread and still looks at the stars."
He began to play: he did not know what. It might have been something he had heard; but anyway to-night it was his and hers, the song of the rose that fought the desert all day for its life and then blossomed with fragrance in the night.
At the sound of the violin a man sitting on the edge of the canal by the cottonwood trees stirred sharply. There was a guitar across his knee. He had been waiting for the sound of voices to cease; and now the accursed fiddle was playing again. He spat vindictively into the stream.
"Damn the Americano!"