Children of the Desert Part 18

Time and again, throughout the winter, the same horse made its appearance at Sylvia's gate at the same hour, and Sylvia mounted and rode away out the Quemado Road and disappeared, returning early in the afternoon.

If you had asked old Antonia about these movements of her mistress she would have said: "Does not the seora need the air?" And she would have added: "She is young." And finally she would have said: "I know nothing."

It is a matter of knowledge that occasionally Sylvia would meet the boy from the stable when he arrived at the gate and instruct him gently to take the horse away, as she would not require it that day; and I am not sure she was not trying still to fight the battle which she had already lost; but this, of course, is mere surmise.

And then a little cog in the machine slipped.

A ranchman who lived out on the north road happened to be in Eagle Pa.s.s one evening as Harboro was pa.s.sing through the town on his way home from work. The ranchman's remark was entirely innocent, but rather unfortunate.

"A very excellent horsewoman, Mrs. Harboro," he remarked, among other things.

Harboro did not understand.

"I met her riding out the road this forenoon," explained the ranchman.

"Oh, yes!" said Harboro. "Yes, she enjoys riding. I'm sorry, on her account, that I haven't more liking for it myself."

He went on up the hill, pondering. It was strange that Sylvia had not told him that she meant to go for a ride. She usually went into minute details touching her outings.

He expected her to mention the matter when he got home, but she did not do so. She seemed disposed not to confide in him throughout the entire evening, and finally he remarked with an air of suddenly remembering: "And so you went riding to-day?"

She frowned and lowered her eyes. She seemed to be trying to remember.

"Why, yes," she said, after a moment's silence. "Yes, I felt rather dull this morning. You know I enjoy riding."

"I know you do," he responded cordially. "I'd like you to go often, if you'll be careful not to take any chances." He smiled at the recollection of the outcome of that ride of theirs to the Quemado, and of the excitement with which they compared experiences when they got back home.

Sylvia and Runyon had made a run for it and had got home before the worst of it came, she had said. But Harboro and the General Manager had waited until the storm had spent itself, both sitting in the carriage with their handkerchiefs pressed to their nostrils, and their coats drawn up about their heads. He remembered, too, how the dust-fog had lingered in the air until well into the next day, like a ghost which could not be laid.

He brought himself back from the recollection of that night. "If you like, I'll have the horse sent every day--or, better still, you shall have a horse of your own."

"No," replied Sylvia, "I might not care to go often." She had let her hair down and was brushing it thoughtfully. "The things which are ordered for you in advance are always half spoiled," she added. "It's better to think of things all of a sudden, and do them."

He looked at her in perplexity. That wasn't his way, certainly; but then she was still occasionally something of an enigma to him. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He was provoked that it came back again and again, as if there were something extraordinary about it, something mysterious. "She only went for a ride," he said to himself late at night, as if he were defending her.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A month later Harboro came home one afternoon to find an envelope addressed to him on the table in the front hall.

He was glad afterward that Sylvia was engaged with Antonia in the dining-room, and did not have a chance to observe him as he examined the thing which that envelope contained.

It was a statement from one of the stables of the town, and it set forth the fact that Harboro was indebted to the stable for horse-hire. There were items, showing that on seven occasions during the past month a horse had been placed at the disposal of Mrs. Harboro.

Harboro was almost foolishly bewildered. Sylvia had gone riding seven times during the month, and she had not even mentioned the matter to him!

Clearly here was a mystery. Her days were not sufficiently full of events to make seven outings a matter of little consequence to her. She was not given to reticence, even touching very little things. She had some reason for not wishing him to know of these movements of hers.

But this conclusion was absurd, of course. She would understand that the bill for services rendered would eventually come to him. He was relieved when that conclusion came to him. No, she was not seeking to make a mystery out of the matter. Still, the question recurred: Why had she avoided even the most casual mention of these outings?

He replaced the statement in the envelope thoughtfully and put it away in his pocket. He was trying to banish the look of dark introspection from his eyes when Sylvia came in from the kitchen and gave a little cry of joy at sight of him. She _was_ happy at the sight of him--Harboro knew it. Yet the cloud did not lift from his brow as he drew her to him and kissed her slowly. She was keeping a secret from him. The conclusion was inescapable.

His impulse was to face the thing frankly, affectionately. He had only to ask her to explain and the thing would be cleared up. But for the first time he found it difficult to be frank with her. If the thing he felt was not a sense of injury, it was at least a sense of mystery: of resentment, too. He could not deny that he felt resentful. At the foundation of his consciousness there was, perhaps, the belief and the hope that she would explain voluntarily. He felt that something precious would be saved to him if she confided in him without prompting, without urging. If he waited, perhaps she would do so. His sense of delicacy forbade him to inquire needlessly into her personal affairs. Surely she was being actuated by some good reason. That she was committed to an evil course was a suspicion which he would have rejected as monstrous. Such a suspicion did not occur to him.

It did not occur to him until the next day, when a bolt fell.

He received another communication from the stable. It was an apology for an error that had been made. The stableman found that he had no account against Mr. Harboro, but that one which should have been made out against Mr. Runyon had been sent to him by mistake.

Quite illogically, perhaps, Harboro jumped to the conclusion that the service had really been rendered to Sylvia, as the original statement had said, and that for some obscure reason it was to be charged against Runyon. But even now it was not a light that he saw. Rather, he was enveloped in darkness. He heard the envelope crackle in his clinched hand.

He turned and climbed the stairs heavily, so that he need not encounter Sylvia until he had had time to think, until he could understand.

Sylvia was taking rides, and Runyon was paying for them. That was to say, Runyon was the moving factor in the arrangement. Therefore, Runyon was deriving a pleasure from these rides of Sylvia's. How? Why, he must be riding with her. They must be meeting by secret appointment.

Harboro shook his head fiercely, like a bull that is being tortured and bewildered by the matadors. No, no! That wasn't the way the matter was to be explained. That could indicate only one thing--a thing that was impossible.

He began at the beginning again. The whole thing had been an error. Sylvia had been rendered no services at all. Runyon had engaged a horse for his own use, and the bill had simply been sent to the wrong place. That was the rational explanation. It was a clear and sufficient explanation.

Harboro held his head high, as if his problem had been solved. He held himself erect, as if a burden had been removed. He had been almost at the point of making a fool of himself, he reflected. Reason a.s.serted itself victoriously. But something which speaks in a softer, more insistent voice than reason kept whispering to him: "Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and Sylvia!"

He faced her almost gayly at supper. He had resolved to play the rle of a happy man with whom all is well. But old Antonia looked at him darkly. Her old woman's sense told her that he was acting a part, and that he was overacting it. From the depths of the kitchen she regarded him as he sat at the table. She lifted her eyes like one who hears a signal-cry when he said casually:

"Have you gone riding any more since that other time, Sylvia?"

Sylvia hesitated. "'That other time'" she repeated vaguely.... "Oh, yes, once since then--once or twice. Why?"

"I believe you haven't mentioned going."

"Haven't I? It doesn't seem a very important thing. I suppose I've thought you wouldn't be interested. I don't believe you and I look at a horseback-ride alike. I think perhaps you regard it as quite an event."

He pondered that deliberately. "You're right," he said. "And ... about paying for the horse. I'm afraid your allowance isn't liberal enough to cover such things. I must increase it next month. Have you been paying out of your own pocket?"

"Yes--yes, of course. It amounts to very little."

His sombre glance travelled across the table to her. She was looking at her plate. She had the appearance of a child encountering a small obstacle in the way of a coveted pleasure. There was neither guilt nor alarm in her bearing, but only an irksome discomfort.

But old Antonia withdrew farther within the kitchen. She took her place under a picture of the Virgin and murmured a little prayer.

PART VI.

THE GUEST-CHAMBER.

CHAPTER XXV.

It was remarked in the offices of the Mexican International Railroad about this time that something had gone wrong with Harboro. He made mistakes in his work. He answered questions at random--or he did not answer them at all. He pa.s.sed people in the office and on the street without seeing them.

But worse than all this, he was to be observed occasionally staring darkly into the faces of his a.s.sociates, as if he would read something that had been concealed from him. He came into one room or another abruptly, as if he expected to hear his name spoken.

His a.s.sociates spoke of his strange behavior--being careful only to wait until he had closed his desk for the day. They were men of different minds from Harboro's. He considered their social positions matters which concerned them only; but they had duly noted the fact that he had been taken up in high places and then dropped without ceremony. They knew of his marriage. Certain rumors touching it had reached them from the American side.

They were rather thrilled at the prospect of a dnouement to the story of Harboro's eccentricity. They used no harsher word than that. They liked him and they would have deplored anything in the nature of a misfortune overtaking him. But human beings are all very much alike in one respect--they find life a tedious thing as a rule and they derive a stimulus from the tale of downfall, even of their friends. They are not pleased that such things happen; they are merely interested, and they welcome the break in the monotony of events.

As for Harboro, he was a far more deeply changed man than they suspected.