Love, Senor, is worth everything a man has to
give--even his life. You would know that, if you had ever loved." He
waited a moment, closed his teeth upon further words, turned abruptly on
his heel and went away into the fog-darkened night.
Dade, with a slight curl to his lips that did not look quite like a
smile, stared into the fire, where the embers were growing charred for
half their length, and the flames were waving wearily and shrinking back
to the coals, and the coals themselves were filmed with gray. The
cigarette went cold and clammy in his fingers, and in his eyes was that
sadness of which Jose had spoken; and something else besides.
They would fight, those two, and fight to kill. Since the world was
first peopled, men had fought as they would fight--for love; for the
possession of a pretty thing--warm, capricious, endearing, with possibly
a heart and a soul beneath; possibly. And love--what was love, after
all? What is love worth? He had loved her, too; at least, he had felt
all the emotions that either of them had felt for her. He was not sure
that he did not still feel them, or would if he let himself go. He did
not believe, however, that those emotions were worth more than
everything else in the world; more than his life, or honor, or
friendship. He had choked love, strangled it, starved it for sake of
friendship; and, sitting there staring abstractedly into the filming
coals, he wondered if he had done wrong; if those two were right, and
love was worth fighting for.
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