“Why, it’s the natural thing to do.”

“Is it?  I was beginning to think selfishness was the natural thing,” he said, with a hard, twisted smile.

She rested her hand on his sleeve for an instant.  A smile and a shake of her head accompanied the action.

“I know better than that, Lee Bryant,” she rejoined.  “You’re not selfish yourself and will never arrive at a time when you’ll believe what you said.”

“But there are selfish people, many of them.”

“Yes.  Of course.”

“And one can’t change them, and they cause infinite anxiety in others——­”

“Yes; that, too.  Has Mr. Menocal been troubling you in some new way?”

Lee rose hastily.  “I wasn’t thinking of him,” said he; and he went to a window and stared out at the engineers’ shack across the street.  Her touch on his arm, her tone, her solicitude, agitated him more than he dared let her see.  Why in the name of heaven couldn’t he have a Ruth who was like her?  A Ruth who was a Louise, with all of her lovable qualities and splendid courage and fine nobility of heart?

He swung about to gaze at her.  She yet sat half turned in her seat so that her clear profile was before his eyes.  Her soft chestnut hair glinted with gleams of the fire that escaped through a crack in the door.  Her features were in repose.  Something in her attitude, in her face, gave her a girlish appearance, as she might have looked when sixteen—­an infinite candor, an innocence and simplicity, that alone comes from a serene spirit.

Presently he discovered that she had moved her head about, that she was looking straight at him.  Bryant experienced a singular emotion.

“Some serious trouble is disturbing you,” she said.

Her eyes continued fixed upon his, increasing his uneasiness.  He felt himself flushing.  He made a gesture as if whatever it was might be disregarded, then said, “Yes.”

“You’re not still anxious concerning me?  I’m rested—­see!”

She sprang up, casting off the rug and spreading her arms wide for his scrutiny.  The heat of the fire had put the glow into her cheeks again; a smile rested on her lips; she seemed poised for an upward flight.

“I’ll take you home,” he said, abruptly.

“Oh, no.  I can ride——­”

“One of the boys will bring your horse to you in the morning,” he continued, as if she had not spoken.  “It would be dark before you reached home; dusk is already at the windows.  And you would be chilled through.  You’ve no business to be riding after what you’ve been through.  I’ll bring my car to the door while you’re putting on your things.”

A vague fear sent him out of the door quickly.  Ruth in his mind was like a figure projected far off in the landscape, occupied, distant, facing away; but Louise Graham was by, and despite his wish or will, or her knowledge, drawing his heart.  What he had sought in Ruth was in her possession, the possibility of happiness.  Life had deluded him and seemed about to crush him in a savage clutch.  As he moved along the street, this apprehension lay cold in his breast; he could not dismiss it; it persisted like a dull throb of pain.  A sudden fury swept him.  The place was becoming intolerable, the mesa a hell.  He burned to chuck the whole wretched business.