United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Not alone from fear of losing you, but I knew it would hurt you horribly, and I hoped ... I had made up my mind ... I was truly loyal to you, Harboro, until they tricked me in my father's house." Harboro continued to regard her, a judge unmoved. "And Runyon, Sylvia Runyon?" he asked accusingly.
"Oh, no! not enough to get in my way, you know. I've never had much of a chance for friendships not for a good many years. But I ought to have a better chance now. I've thought you'd be able to help me in that way." She did not linger in the room, and Harboro got the idea that she did not like to think of their sharing their home with outsiders. He understood that, too.
She helped Antonia make the final preparations for supper, and she set off down the road quite cheerfully after they arose from the table. Harboro watched her with a new depth of tenderness. This sweet submission, the quick recognition of a filial duty once it was pointed out to her here were qualities which were of the essence of that childlike beauty which is the highest charm in women.
"I know how it appears to you; but if you could only see how it seemed to me!" "I'm trying," said Harboro, unmoved. "If I'd been a little field of grass for the sheep to graze on, do you suppose I shouldn't have been happy if the birds passed by, or that I shouldn't have been ready for the sheep when they came?
Before she had brought the child back, washed and comforted, to help her with her food, Peterson had forgotten the interruption entirely. "Old Harboro!" he said affectionately and musingly. Then he seemed to be swelling up, as if he were a mobile vessel filled with water that had begun to boil. He became as red as a victim of apoplexy. His eyes filled with an unholy mirth, his teeth glistened.
She awoke, but Harboro's crowning torture came when he saw the expression in her eyes. The horror of one who tumbles into a bottomless abyss was in them. But now thank God! she drew herself to him passionately and wept in his arms. The day had brought back to her the capacity to think, to compare the fine edifice she and Harboro had built with the wreck which a cruel beast had wrought.
"Stand aside, Dunwoodie," commanded Harboro harshly. "Well, wait a minute," insisted Dunwoodie. "Calm yourself, man. I want to talk to you. Fectnor's not in the saloon. He went on through and out the back way." Harboro wheeled with an almost despairing expression in his eyes. He seemed to look at nothing, now like a bird-dog that senses the nearness of the invisible quarry.
The thought came to him: "Fectnor may appear at any point, behind me!" The man might have run back along the line of buildings, seeking his own place to emerge again. But Dunwoodie went on reassuringly. He had guessed the thought in Harboro's mind. "No, he's quite gone. I watched him go. He's probably in Mexico by this time or well on his way, at least." Harboro drew a deep breath.
And so Harboro decided that he and Sylvia would go to the big affair at the Quemado. There was an atmosphere of happiness and bustle in the house when the night of the outing came. He would have preferred a carriage, but Sylvia had assumed that they would ride, and she plainly preferred that mode of travel. She had been an excellent horsewoman in the old San Antonio days.
She was watching him as he scowled at the first page of the Guide. But if chagrin was the essence of the thing that bothered Harboro, something far deeper caused Sylvia to stand like a slim, slumbering tree. She was frightened. Harboro would begin to ask why? And he was a man. He would guess the reason.
Word Of The Day