Next morning, as every morning, the awakening was sweet, fresh, new, hopeful. Another day! And the wonderful dry keenness of the air, the colors that made the earth seem a land of enchantment, were enough in themselves to make life worth living. In the morning he always felt like a boy.
Margarita’s repentance for her moods of yesterday took a material turn in the preparation of an unusually good breakfast for Adam. He was always hungry and good meals were rare. Adam liked her attentions, and he encouraged them; though not before the señora or Arallanes, for the former approved too obviously and the latter disapproved too mysteriously.
When, some time later, a boat arrived, Adam was among the first to meet it at the dock.
He encountered MacKay coming ashore in the company of a man and two women, one of whom was young. The manager showed a beaming face for the first time in many days. Repairs for the mill engine had come. MacKay at once introduced Adam to the party; and it so turned out that presently the manager, who was extremely busy, left his friends for Adam to entertain. They were people whom Adam liked immediately, and as the girl was pretty, of a blond type seldom seen in the Southwest, it seemed to Adam that his task was more than agreeable. He showed them around the little village and then explained how interesting it would be for them to see the gold mill. How long a time it seemed since he had been in the company of a girl like those he had known at home! She was merry, intelligent, a little shy.
He was invited aboard the boat to have lunch with the mother and daughter. Everything tended to make this a red-letter day for Adam. The hours passed all too swiftly and time came for the boat to depart. When the boat swung free from the shore Adam read in the girl’s eyes the thought keen in his own mind—that they would never meet again. The round of circumstances might never again bring a girl like that into Adam’s life, if it were to be lived in these untrodden ways. He waved his hand with all the eloquence which it would express. Then the obtruding foliage on the bank hid the boat and the girl was gone. His last thought was a selfish one—that his brother Guerd would not see her at Ehrenberg.
Some of MacKay’s laborers were working with unloaded freight on the dock. One of these was Regan, the little Irishman who had been keen to mark Adam on several occasions. He winked at MacKay and pointed at Adam.
“Mac, shure thot boy’s a divil with the wimmen!”
MacKay roared with laughter and looked significantly past Adam as if this mirth was not wholly due to his presence alone. Some one else seemed implicated. Suddenly Adam turned. Margarita stood there, with face and mien of a tragedy queen, and it seemed to Adam that her burning black eyes did not see anything in the world but him. Then, with one of her swift actions, graceful and lithe, yet violent, she wheeled and fled.
“O Lord!” murmured Adam, aghast at the sudden-dawning significance of the case. He had absolutely forgotten Margarita’s existence. Most assuredly she had seen every move of his with her big eyes, and read his mind, too. He could not see the humor of his situation at the moment, but as he took a short cut through the shady mesquites toward his hut, and presently espied Margarita in ambush. What fiendish glee this predicament of his would have aroused in his brother Guerd! Adam, the lofty, the supercilious, had come a cropper at last—such would have been Guerd’s scorn and rapture!
Margarita came rushing from the side, right upon him even as he turned. So swiftly she came that he could not get a good look at her, but she appeared a writhing, supple little thing, instinct with fury. Hissing Spanish maledictions, she flung herself upward, and before he could ward her off she had slapped and scratched his face and beat wildly at him with flying brown fists. He thrust her away, but she sprang back. Then, suddenly hot with anger, he grasped her and, jerking her off her feet, he shook her with far from gentle force, and did not desist till he saw that he was hurting her. Letting her down and holding her at arm’s length, he gazed hard at the white face framed by disheveled black hair and lighted by eyes so magnificently expressive of supreme passion that his anger was shocked into wonder and admiration. Desert eyes! Right there a conception dawned in his mind—he was seeing a spirit through eyes developed by the desert.