Then placing both her hands still girlishly on her slim waist and curtseying grotesquely before him,she said:"'Lige Curtis!Oh,yes!'Lige Curtis,who swore to do everything for me!'Lige Curtis,who promised to give up liquor for me,--who was to leave Tasajara for me!'Lige Curtis,who was to reform,and keep his land as a nest-egg for us both in the future,and then who sold it--and himself--and me--to dad for a glass of whiskey!'Lige Curtis,who disappeared,and then let us think he was dead,only that he might attack us out of the ambush of his grave!""Yes,but think what I have suffered all these years;not for the cursed land--you know I never cared for that--but for YOU,--you,Clementina,--YOU rich,admired by every one;idolized,held far above me,--ME,the forgotten outcast,the wretched suicide--and yet the man to whom you had once plighted your troth.Which of those greedy fortune-hunters whom my money--my life-blood as you might have thought it was--attracted to you,did you care to tell that you had ever slipped out of the little garden gate at Sidon to meet that outcast!Do you wonder that as the years passed and YOU were happy,I did not choose to be so forgotten?Do you wonder that when YOU shut the door on the past I managed to open it again--if only a little way--that its light might startle you?"Yet she did not seem startled or disturbed,and remained only looking at him critically.
"You say that you have suffered,"she replied with a smile."You don't look it!Your hair is white,but it is becoming to you,and you are a handsomer man,'Lige Curtis,than you were when I first met you;you are finer,"she went on,still regarding him,"stronger and healthier than you were five years ago;you are rich and prosperous,you have everything to make you happy,but"--here she laughed a little,held out both her hands,taking his and holding his arms apart in a rustic,homely fashion--"but you are still the same old 'Lige Curtis!It was like you to go off and hide yourself in that idiotic way;it was like you to let the property slide in that stupid,unselfish fashion;it was like you to get real mad,and say all those mean,silly things to dad,that didn't hurt him--in your regular looney style;for rich or poor,drunk or sober,ragged or elegant,plain or handsome,--you're always the same 'Lige Curtis!"In proportion as that material,practical,rustic self--which nobody but 'Lige Curtis had ever seen--came back to her,so in proportion the irresolute,wavering,weak and emotional vagabond of Sidon came out to meet it.He looked at her with a vague smile;his five years of childish resentment,albeit carried on the shoulders of a man mentally and morally her superior,melted away.
He drew her towards him,yet at the same moment a quick suspicion returned.
"Well,and what are you doing here?Has this man who has followed you any right,any claim upon you?""None but what you in your folly have forced upon him!You have made him father's ally.I don't know why he came here.I only know why I did--to find YOU!""You suspected then?"
"I KNEW!Hush!"
The returning voices of Grant and of Mrs.Ramirez were heard in the courtyard.Clementina made a warning yet girlishly mirthful gesture,again caught his hand,drew him quickly to the French window,and slipped through it with him into the garden,where they were quickly lost in the shadows of a ceanothus hedge.
"They have probably met Don Jose in the orchard,and as he and Don Diego have business together,Dona Clementina has without doubt gone to her room and left them.For you are not very entertaining to the ladies to-day,--you two caballeros!You have much politics together,eh?--or you have discussed and disagreed,eh?I will look for the Senorita,and let you go,Don Distraido!"It is to be feared that Grant's apologies and attempts to detain her were equally feeble,--as it seemed to him that this was the only chance he might have of seeing Clementina except in company with Fletcher.As Mrs.Ramirez left he lit a cigarette and listlessly walked up and down the gallery.But Clementina did not come,neither did his hostess return.A subdued step in the passage raised his hopes,--it was only the grizzled major domo,to show him his room that he might prepare for dinner.
He followed mechanically down the long passage to a second corridor.There was a chance that he might meet Clementina,but he reached his room without encountering any one.It was a large vaulted apartment with a single window,a deep embrasure in the thick wall that seemed to focus like a telescope some forgotten,sequestered part of the leafy garden.While washing his hands,gazing absently at the green vignette framed by the dark opening,his attention was drawn to a movement of the foliage,stirred apparently by the rapid passage of two half-hidden figures.The quick flash of a feminine skirt seemed to indicate the coy flight of some romping maid of the casa,and the pursuit and struggle of her vaquero swain.To a despairing lover even the spectacle of innocent,pastoral happiness in others is not apt to be soothing,and Grant was turning impatiently away when he suddenly stopped with a rigid face and quickly approached the window.In her struggles with the unseen Corydon,the clustering leaves seemed to have yielded at the same moment with the coy Chloris,and parting--disclosed a stolen kiss!Grant's hand lay like ice against the wall.For,disengaging Fletcher's arm from her waist and freeing her skirt from the foliage,it was the calm,passionless Clementina herself who stepped out,and moved pensively towards the casa.