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She went into the hall in a rage, still holding the photograph. She flung the door open and in walked Gilfoyle. She fell back stupefied. He grinned, and took her in with devouring eyes. If he had no right to devour her, who had? He approved of her with a rush of delight: "Well, Anita, here I am. And how's the little wife?" She could not answer him.
But he could not woo as men woo. The barrier of his own weakness stood between them and must be painfully taken down. "I'm afraid this is stupid for you," said Anita out of the silence. "Would you like to go to the music-room?" "God forbid. I was thinking." "Of what?" Encouragement this, surely. "I was thinking how you had come into my life, and stirred it up." "Really? "You know that."
But it was getting late, and at the rate we were hoisting darkness would overtake us before we could reach the herd. So I ordered Enrique to the bucket, while I took my own horse and furnished the hoisting power. We were making some headway with the work, when a party of women, among them the Doña Anita, came down to the well to fill vessels for house use.
"But it will soon be over now, my child," he said, "all the trouble and the nursing. You have been very good to the poor forestiere since the povera went to the blessed saints. I shall soon see her again, and Anita, and the little Giulio, in the better country that the signorina was reading about, better, she says, than the patria itself, with its olives and vines. Ah!
The wild thought swept me. But it was not that. I could see light stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko had dared to send some men to attack our almost deserted camp! Grantline realized it. His red helmet light semaphored the command to follow him. His platform soared away, heading for the camp, with the other two behind him. Anita lifted us to follow. But I checked her. "No!
At the table, though, Broussard found Anita strangely unlike the Anita he had been steadily falling in love with since he first saw her, three months before, when Colonel Fortescue took command at Fort Blizzard.
It dropped, cautiously floating down. There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste was necessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship. I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal from here." "No. Miko might see it." We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or up here, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks? "Are you ready, Anita?"
He jerked up his head and stood with mouth open. It couldn't be but, yes, it was Anita Linda Rosa! Gee Gosh! He turned to Loring. "I been tellin' you the truth," he said simply. "'Course I got to see me boss, now. But it makes no difference what he says, after this. I'm ranchin' for meself, because I'm er thinkin' of gettin' married."
"We got to go and take care of Jim. I couldn't get word to Lorry. No tellin' where to locate him just now. Mebby it's just as well. They's a train west along about midnight. Now, you get somebody to stay here till we get back " "But, Mr. Shoop! I can't leave like this. I haven't a thing ready. Anita can't manage alone."
Nor did Anita know what reply she made. After a deep and rapturous silence they returned to earth, only to find it still Heaven. "I love you better than anything on earth except my honor," said Broussard, holding Anita's little gloved hand in his. "Yes," answered Anita softly, "next your honor." "And I have loved you for a long time," Broussard continued, "for a whole year."