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Page 22 text:
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'ULVIDN ENDELLI IVIICPHFIRSON was sitting upon the porlico of the house where he roomed. N' It was evening and the town of San Luis, L9 ' 5 A3 that had lain slumbering throughout the terrific heat of the day, was beginning to awake in response to the cooling touch of twilight. Along the dusty roadway be- fore him there were hurrying many brightly dressed couples on their way to the plaza, the lights of which he could see as he looked down the street. Many of those that passed were Spanish, a great many more were Mexican, and occa- sionally a solitary, blanketed Indian shuffled by. But not a white person did he see. The settled Americans lived in another part of the town. .lfle pulled slowly, meditatively at his pipe as he leaned with his arms upon his knees, and watched the moving throng out upon the plaza. There came to him indistinctly the hum of its voice, while at inter- vals the sound of a clear, musical Spanish laugh would rise above the murmur. He got up and walked to and fro along the portlco. At last he decided he would go down and mail the letter he had in his pocket, and possibly stop at one or two of the stores to chat a bit. Then he came to the con- clusion that he wouldn't, and sat down again. just then there- turned into the street from the Plaza a tall figure, which walked rapidly. As it came nearer Weliclell recog- ' Forgetting nized it to be Carthers, one ofthe civil engineers with whom he worked. Isle soon came up. Hello, lX'IcPherson. Why in the devil did you skip out for home so early? I had a letter to write, as he rose to greet his visitor. Obi youlve always got a letter to write. But that's not what I came to see you about. There is going to be a hell of a big 'blow out' over at Senor Ilugo's to-night. Big dance-fine music-eats and wine galore-and any number of pretty senoritas. Hugo told me to-day he was going to make it the biggest f1ll1Cl0lZ Of the summer. Now, you'd better come and crawl out of your shellfor once and go along with me. What? You don't care for this sort of a thing? Damn it all, McPherson, you don't know what it is till you've tried it. You'll go looney if you don't get out of yourself pretty soon. WOll,t you come P Mc.l.'herson knocked out his pipe on a post before he replied. No, Carthers. You've asked me lots of times, and I appreciate your interest in my welfare-but-I can't go! Oh, hell! I suppose some one back home has you tied. Eh F Perhaps, quite softly. Same old answer. But I must go,l' as he started off. He walked some steps, tlien stopped. 24
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Page 23 text:
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f'McP.herson, Iuliana's going to be there,'l and Carthers laughed as he went away. XVendell sat down, refilled his pipe, lit it, and imme- diately fell to thinking. Wfas not Carthers right when he said that he would go crazy if he did not get away from himself soon? A year and two months had passed since he and that other one had plighted their faith and trust and love away back at an Indiana college. All this time he had been working out here in New Mexico for a railroad that was slowly pushing its way across the mountains and the Rio Grande plateau. l-le had seen her but twice during the fourteen months, then only for a day each time. VVas he changing? Were not some of his ideals and ambitions, with which he had left college, a little bit tarnished? Did he feel just the same as he had then toward life and toward the girl who had told him he was her all? For a year and two months now he had been living among these Spaniards, In- dians, Mexicans and whites, with their loose, gay, happy life, without once yielding to any sort of a temptation. I-Ie had daily associated with his brother engineers, men of low characters and vicious habits, without, so far as any out- ward sign was concerned, tainting himself the least bit. But the restraint, the constant guard of himself, was beginning to tell upon his mentality. l-Ie was a man inherently weak and emotional. Every moral victory meant a fierce battle with him. Even now there came an impulse to get away and out from himself, and join for but one brief hour the gaiety of the plaza, an impulse to mingle and lose himself in the warmth and the color'of the life around him. The call of the country and its life came to him strongly just then. 25 lt was almost dark now. He could hear through the cool, still air the sound of guitarros, the accompanying music of the ll'tllIStl. The crowd on the plaza was becoming less dense. Senor 1-l.ugo's would be popular that night. VVhy not go, he thought, just this once? Then, as if the devil himself had planned it, there came through the door and out onto the portico an already too fa- miliar figure-that of Juliana, the daughter of his Spanish landlord. lleautiful in the extreme she was, as she stood poised upon one foot, awaiting some sign from him, that she might know of her welcome. lndeed, Juliana was known through- out the entire Rio Grande valley as the most beautiful senorita of them all. And it was this marvelous beauty of body and face that had been her fortune, also her ruin, for she had none too good a reputation among the righteous element of the town. Many noted men of wealth, of both Spanish and American blood, had come to worship her and do her homage. But she l1ad been the same Juliana to them all. She knew that it was her face and body they wor- shiped, and she acted accordingly. fljaradoxical as it might seem, she had been passionately sensuous with her body, but this had been accompanied with a coldness of heart and soul that only McPherson's coming had managed to soften. The change had been wrought all unconsciously by him. He had awakened within her that which she had never felt before-love. The true womanhood in her was being born. She had left all other men alone, and now was loving him with all the hot passion of her Spanish nature. Her past was by herself forgotten, and she lived in the present,
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