“Mother could never live in one place any length of time,” said Nell.  “And since we’ve been in the Southwest she has never ceased trying to find some trace of her father.  He was last heard of in Nogales fourteen years ago.  She thinks grandfather was lost in the Sonora Desert....And every place we go is worse.  Oh, I love the desert.  But I’d like to go back to Lawrence—­or to see Chicago or New York—­some of the places Mr. Gale speaks of....  I remember the college at Lawrence, though I was only twelve.  I saw races—­and once real football.  Since then I’ve read magazines and papers about big football games, and I was always fascinated ....Mr. Gale, of course, you’ve seen games?

“Yes, a few,” replied Dick; and he laughed a little.  It was on his lips then to tell her about some of the famous games in which he had participated.  But he refrained from exploiting himself.  There was little, however, of the color and sound and cheer, of the violent action and rush and battle incidental to a big college football game that he did not succeed in making Mercedes and Nell feel just as if they had been there.  They hung breathless and wide-eyed upon his words.

Some one else was present at the latter part of Dick’s narrative.  The moment he became aware of Mrs. Belding’s presence he remembered fancying he had heard her call, and now he was certain she had done so.  Mercedes and Nell, however, had been and still were oblivious to everything except Dick’s recital.  He saw Mrs. Belding cast a strange, intent glance upon Nell, then turn and go silently through the patio.  Dick concluded his talk, but the brilliant beginning was not sustained.

Dick was haunted by the strange expression he had caught on Mrs. Belding’s face, especially the look in her eyes.  It had been one of repressed pain liberated in a flash of certainty.  The mother had seen just as quickly as Mercedes how far he had gone on the road of love.  Perhaps she had seen more—­even more than he dared hope.  The incident roused Gale.  He could not understand Mrs. Belding, nor why that look of hers, that seeming baffled, hopeless look of a woman who saw the inevitable forces of life and could not thwart them, should cause him perplexity and distress.  He wanted to go to her and tell her how he felt about Nell, but fear of absolute destruction of his hopes held him back.  He would wait.  Nevertheless, an instinct that was perhaps akin to self-preservation prompted him to want to let Nell know the state of his mind.  Words crowded his brain seeking utterance.  Who and what he was, how he loved her, the work he expected to take up soon, his longings, hopes, and plans—­there was all this and more.  But something checked him.  And the repression made him so thoughtful and quiet, even melancholy, that he went outdoors to try to throw off the mood.  The sun was yet high, and a dazzling white light enveloped valleys and peaks.  He felt that the wonderful sunshine was the dominant feature of that arid region.  It was like white gold.  It had burned its color in a face he knew.  It was going to warm his blood and brown his skin.  A hot, languid breeze, so dry that he felt his lips shrink with its contact, came from the desert; and it seemed to smell of wide-open, untainted places where sand blew and strange, pungent plants gave a bitter-sweet tang to the air.