"Oh, one of the miners," she said indifferently.
He knew her too well to fancy that he could trap her into any new
admissions, and he had no wish to arouse her suspicions. Therefore he
dropped the subject, especially as he felt fully answered.
He leaned against a tree and, drawing a cigar from his pocket, lighted
it, although the hand with which he did so trembled. "I guess some
explanations are in order between you and me," he said. "I guess it's
about time that you began to get it into your head that you can't make a
fool of me all the time. I'm ready and willing to admit that there was
some excuse for you down in the desert. I made a bad break there, which
I'm freely conceding was no way to treat a lady. But that don't explain
or excuse the way you've treated me this morning," he laughed bitterly.
"There's no way to explain it unless living here in the mountains has
gone to your head or unless there's another man. Is there?" his eyes
pierced her. "Is there?"
She looked back at him with a hard, inscrutable smile, but she did not
answer.
Another man! He couldn't, wouldn't believe it. Why, it was only
yesterday that they two had met and loved in the desert. Again he fell
to pleading. "Oh, Pearl, be like what you were again. Don't stand off
from me that way, honey. It ain't in you to be so cruel and hard. Come
back to me, here in my arms. Have your spells; treat me like you please;
but come back to me. Oh, honey, come."
She looked beyond him, not at him, and then ground a little heap of
freshly fallen pine needles beneath her heel.
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