be a handsome dress," repeated Harboro an hour later, when they
had returned to the balcony. It was dusk now, and little tapers of light
were beginning to burn here and there in the desert: small, open fires
where Mexican women were cooking their suppers of dried goat's meat and
_frijoles_.

Said Sylvia: "If only.... Does it matter so much to you that they should
invite us?"

"It matters to me on your account. Such things are yours by right. You
wouldn't be happy always with me alone. We must think of the future."

Sylvia took his hand and stroked it thoughtfully. There _were_ moments
when she hungered for a bit of the comedy of life: laughter and other
youthful noises. The Mexican _bailes_ and their humble feasts were
delightful; and the song of the violins, and the odor of smoke, and the
innocent rivalries, and the night air. But the Mesquite Club....

"If only we could go on the way we are," she said finally, with a sigh of
contentment--and regret.

CHAPTER V

Harboro insisted upon her going across the river with him the next day, a
Sunday. It was now late in October, but you wouldn't have realized it
unless you had looked at the calendar. The sun was warm--rather too warm.
The air was extraordinarily clear. It was an election year and the town
had been somewhat disorderly the night before. Harboro and Sylvia had
heard the noises from their balcony: singing, first, and then shouting.
And later drunken Mexicans had ridden past the house and on out the
Quemado Road. A Mexican who is the embodiment of taciturnity when afoot,
will become a howling organism when he is mounted.

Harboro had telephoned to see if an appointment could be made--to a madame
somebody whose professional card he had found in the _Guide_. And he had
been assured that monsieur would be very welcome on a Sunday.

Sylvia was glad that it was not on a weekday, and that it was in the
forenoon, when she would be required to make her first public appearance
with her husband. The town would be practically deserted, save by a few
better-class young men who might be idling about the drug-store. They
wouldn't know her, and if they did, they would behave circumspectly.
Strangely enough, it was Sylvia's conviction that men are nearly all good
creatures.

As it fell out it was Harboro and not Sylvia who was destined to be
humiliated that day--a fact which may not seem strange to the discerning.

They had got as far as the middle of the Rio Gr