While
his slow brown fingers rolled a cigarette he stared away through the
garden and across the desert with an expression half melancholy, half
merely meditative, which made the girl wonder what his thoughts were.
When she came to know him better she would know too that at times like
this he was not thinking at all.
"I believe this is the most profoundly peaceful place in the world,"
she said quietly, half listlessly setting into words the impression
which had clung about her throughout the long, still day. "It is like
a strange dream-town, one sees no one moving about, hears nothing. It
is just a little sad, isn't it?"
He had followed her until the end, comprehending. But sad? How that?
It was just as it should be; to ears which had never been filled with
the noises or rushing trains and cars and all of the traffic of a city,
what sadness could there be in the very natural calm of the rim of the
desert? Having no satisfactory reply to make, Ignacio merely muttered,
"Si, senorita," somewhat helplessly and let it go with that.
"Tell me," she continued, sitting up a little and seeming to throw off
the oppressively heavy spell of her environment, "who are the important
people hereabouts?"
_La gente_? Oh, Ignacio knew them well, all of them! There was Senor
Engle, to begin with.
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