For Jack to stay at
home, to be near Teresita every day, to have nothing in the way of his
love-making--nothing, since those doting two, her parents, would but
smile at whatever she might choose to do--there was acid enough in that
thought to eat away all the warmth, all the generosity Jose possessed.
He let Dade go without even the perfunctory phrases of regret, which
custom had made almost compulsory; and Manuel, sitting in silent wrath
upon the porch, listened to the steady footfalls moving up and down the
room behind him until the moon, that had been shining in his smoldering
eyes, slipped over the red tiles of the roof and left all but the
tree-tops in black shade.
"Dios! There will be one gringo the less when those two meet," he
muttered, staring at the tiny glow of his cigarette; and afterward
folded his arms tightly over a chest that heaved with the impatience
within. When those two met, Manuel meant to be there also to see. "Me, I
should like to drag him to death with the six-strand riata he despised!"
was the beautiful thought he took to bed with him.
Sunshine was lifting the morning fog high above the tree-tops when the
old, gray mare, whose every movement tinkled the bell hung around her
neck, shook her rough coat vigorously to free it from the moisture which
the fog had left; and so jangled a peremptory summons to the herd of
saddle horses that bore the brand of Don Andres Picardo upon their right
thighs.
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