As for her, she was unfeignedly glad to see him.
"I sure have worried a lot about you this winter, Pearl," he said to her
that evening as they two sat a little apart from the rest, Gallito,
Jose, Hugh and Seagreave, who all clustered about the fire, while Pearl,
as usual, had drawn her chair within the warm gloom of the pine-scented
shadow.
"Ain't you silly!" She looked up at him with her heart-shattering,
adorable smile.
"I am always about you," he said. "You're all I think of, Pearl, night
and day."
She patted his arm lightly. "I've always got you to depend on anyway,
haven't I, Bob?" Her soft, lazy, sliding voice was itself a caress.
"You sure have. Anytime, anywhere. No matter what happens, I can't ever
change, Pearl. Lord! You ought to know that by this time."
"Maybe I do, Bob, and maybe I like knowing it."
"I hope you do, but it wouldn't make any difference whether you did or
didn't. I got to love you. I guess the cards fell that way for me before
I was born and nothing can ever change that layout."
"You've never failed me yet, Bob."
"And never will. Oh, Pearl, don't you, can't you see your way to
marrying me?"
She stirred restlessly, a faintly troubled look shadowing her face.
"There's so many of me, and I never know what I'm going to do or how I'm
going to feel. I'd just be bound to make you miserable."
"It wouldn't be the first time," he said a little sadly. "But you see I
know you. I ain't got any mistaken notions about you, and I love you
more than any other man in this life'll ever do, Pearl.
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