CHAPTER III
Serenely indifferent to the fact that but a few hours' average runningtime intervenes between it and San Francisco on the north, and LosAngeles on the south, the little desert station of San Pasqual hasalways insisted upon remaining a frontier town.
One can pardon San Pasqual readily for this apparent apathy. Not to doso would savor strongly of an application of the doctrine of personalresponsibility in the matter of a child with a club-foot. San Pasqualisn't responsible. It has nothing to be proud of, nothing to incite evena sporadic outburst of civic pride. It never had.
Here, in this story, occurs a description. In a narrative of humanemotions, descriptions are, perhaps, better appreciated when they aredispensed with unless, as in the case of San Pasqual, they are worth thetime and space and trouble. Assuming, therefore, that San Pasqual,for all its failings, is distinctive enough to warrant this, we willdescribe the town as it appeared early in the present decade; and, forthat matter, will continue to appear, pending the day when they strikeoil in the desert and San Pasqual picks itself together, so to speak,and begins to take an interest in life. Until then, however, as a centerof social, scenic, intellectual and commercial activity, San Pasqualwill never attract globe-trotters, folks with Pilgrim ancestors orretired bankers from Kansas and Iowa seeking an attractive investment inwestern real estate.
San Pasqual is such a weather-beaten, sad, abject little town that onemight readily experience surprise that the trains even condescend tostop there. It squats in the sand a few miles south of Tehachapi pass,hemmed in by mountain ranges ocher-tinted where near by, mellowed bydistance into gorgeous shades of turquoise and deep maroon. They arevery far away, these mountains, even though their outlines are sodistinct that they appear close at hand. The desert atmosphere has casta kindly spell upon them, softening their hellish perspective into linesof beauty in certain lights. It is well that this is so, for it helps todispel an illusion of the imaginative and impressionable when first theyvisit San Pasqual--the illusion that they are in prison.
The basin that lies between these mountains is the waste known as theMojave desert. It stretches north and south from San Pasqual, fadingaway into nothing, into impalpable, unlovely, soul-crushing suggestionsof space illimitable; dancing and shimmering in the heat waves, it seemsstruggling to escape. When the wind blows, the dust-devils play tagamong the low sage and greasewood; the Joshua trees, rising in themidst of this desolation, stretch forth their fantastically twisted andwithered arms, seeming to invoke a curse on nature herself while warningthe traveler that the heritage of this land is death. There is a bearingdown of one's spirit in the midst of all this loneliness and desolationthat envelops everything; yet, despite the uncanny mystery of it, thesense of repression it imparts, of unconquerable isolation from all thatis good and sweet and beautiful, there are those who find it possible tolive in San Pasqual without feeling that they are accursed.
At the western boundary of the Mojave desert lies San Pasqual, huddledaround the railroad water tank. It is the clearing-house for the Mojave,for entering or leaving the desert men must pass through San Pasqual.From the main-line tracks a branch railroad now extends north across thedesert, through the eastern part of Kern county and up the Owens rivervalley into Inyo, although at the time Donna Corblay enters into thisstory the railroad had not been built and a stage line bore the brunt ofthe desert travel as far north as Keeler--constituting the main outletfrom that vast but little known section of California that lies east ofthe Sierra Nevada range.
Hence, people entering or leaving this great basin passed through SanPasqual, which accounted for the town that grew up around the watertank; the little row of so-called "pool parlors," cheap restaurants,saloons and gambling houses, the post-office, a drug store, a tinyschool-house with a belfry and no bell and the little row of cottageswest of the main-line tracks where all the _good_ people lived--whichconglomerate mass of inchoate architecture is all that saved San Pasqualfrom the ignominy of being classed as a flag station.
We are informed that the _good_ people lived west of the tracks. Eastof the tracks it was different. The past tense is used with a fullappreciation of the necessity for grammatical construction, for timeshave changed in San Pasqual, since it is no longer encumbered withthe incubus that made this story possible--Harley P. Hennage, the towngambler and the worst man in San Pasqual.
Close to the main-line tracks and midway between both strata of societystood San Pasqual's limited social and civic center--the railroad hoteland eating-house. Here, between the arrival and departure of all throughtrains, the San Pasqualians met on neutral ground, experiencing mildmental relaxation watching the waitresses ministering to the gastronomicnecessities of the day-coach tourists from the Middle West. At theperiod in which the action of this story takes place, however, mostpeople preferred to find relief from the aching desolation of SanPasqual and its environs in the calm, restful, spiritual face of DonnaCorblay.
Donna was the young lady cashier at the combination news stand, cigarand tobacco emporium and pay-as-you-leave counter in the eating-house.She was more than that. She was an institution. She was the day hotelclerk; the joy and despair of traveling salesmen who made it a point ofduty to get off at San Pasqual and eat whether they were hungry or not;information clerk for rates and methods of transportation for all desertpoints north, south, east and west. She was the recipient of confidencesfrom waitresses engaged in the innocent pastime of across-the-counterflirtations with conductors and brakemen. She was the joy of the men andthe envy of the women. In fact, Donna was an exemplified copy of thatdistinctive personality with which we unconsciously invest any youngwoman upon whose capable shoulders must fall such multifarious duties asthose already described; particularly when, as in Donna's case, theyare accepted and disposed of with the gentle, kindly, interested yetimpersonal manner of one who loves her little world enough to be a verydistinct part of it; yet, seeing it in its true light, manages to holdherself aloof from it; unconsciously conveying to one meeting her forthe first time the impression that she was in San Pasqual on her ownsufferance--a sort of strayling from another world who had picked uponthe lonely little desert town as the scene of her sphere of actionfor something of the same reason that prompts other people to collectpostage stamps or rare butterflies.
It has already been stated that Donna Corblay was an institution. Thatis quite true. She was the mistress of the Hat Ranch.
This last statement requires elucidation. Just what is a hat ranch? youask. It is--a hat ranch. There is only one Hat Ranch on earth and it maybe found a half mile south of San Pasqual, a hundred yards back from thetracks. Donna Corblay owned it, worked it in her spare moments and madeit pay.
You see, San Pasqual lies just south of Tehachapi pass, and about fivedays in every week, the year round, the north wind comes whistling downthe pass. When it strikes the open desert it appears to become possessedof an almost human disposition to spurt and get by San Pasqual asquickly as possible. Hence, when the tourist approaching the stationsticks his head out of the window or unwisely remains on the platformof the observation car, this forty-mile "zephyr," as they term it in SanPasqual, sighs joyously past him, snatches his headgear, whirls it downthe tracks and deposits it at the western boundary of Donna's "ranch."This boundary happens to be a seven-foot adobe wall--so the hat sticksthere.
In the days when Donna lived at the Hat Ranch she would pause at thiswall every evening on her way home from work long enough to gather upthe orphaned hats. Later, after cleaning and brushing them, she wouldsell them to the boys up in San Pasqual. There was a wide variety ofstyle, size and color in Donna's stock of hats, and fastidious indeedwas he who could not select from the lot a hat to match his peculiarstyle of masculine beauty. And, furthermore: damned was he who so farforgot tradition and local custom as to purchase his "every-day" hatelsewhere. He might buy his Sunday hat in Bakersfield or Los Angelesand still retain caste, but his every-day hat--never! Such a proceedingwould have been construed by Do
nna's admirers as a direct attack onhome industry. In fact, one made money by purchasing his hats ofDonna Corblay. If she never accepted less than one dollar for a hat,regardless of age, color, original price and previous condition ofservitude, she never charged more. Hence, everybody was satisfied--or,if not satisfied at the time, all they had to do was to await thearrival of the next train. The "zephyrs" were steady and reliable and inSan Pasqual it is an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody a hat.
In San Pasqual stray hats were not looked upon as flotsamand jetsam and subject to a too liberal interpretation of the"Losers-weepers-finders-keepers" rule. There was a dead-line for hatsbeyond which no gentleman would venture, for, after a hat had onceblown beyond the town limits it was no longer a maverick and subject tobranding, but on the other hand was the absolute, undeniable and legalproperty of Donna Corblay.
So much for the hats. As for the ranch itself, it wasn't, properlyspeaking, a ranch at all. It was a low, four-room adobe house with alean-to kitchen built of boards. It had a dirt roof and iron-barredwindows and in the rear there was a long rectangular patio with afountain and a flower garden. In fact, the ranch was more of a fortressthan a dwelling-place and was surrounded by an adobe wall whichenclosed about an acre of the Mojave desert. Originally it had been thehabitation of a visionary who wandered into San Pasqual, established theranch and sunk an artesian well. With irrigation the rich alluvial soilof the desert will grow anything, and the original owner planned toraise garden-truck and cater to the local trade. He prospered, but beingof that vast majority of humankind to whom prosperity proves a sortof mental hobble, he made up his mind one day to go prospecting. So hewrote out a notice, advertising the property for sale, and tacked it toa telegraph pole in front of the eating-house.
Alas for the frailty and suspicion of human nature! The self-centeredand self-satisfied citizens of San Pasqual had condemned the vegetableventure from the start. It had been too radical a departure from thedesert order of things, and the fact that a mere stranger had conceivedthe idea sufficed to damn the enterprise even with those who gloried inthe convenience of fresh vegetables; while the fact that the vegetableculturist was now about to leave branded the experiment a failure andwas productive of a chorus of "I told you so's." The announcement of theproprietor of the ranch that he would entertain offers on a property towhich he had no title other than that entailed in the God-given rightof every American citizen to squat on a piece of land until he is drivenoff, was received as a rare piece of humor. In disgust the founderof the Hat Ranch abandoned his vegetable business, loaded his worldlyeffects on two burros and departed, leaving the kitchen door wide open.He never returned.
In the course of time a young woman with a two-months-old daughter cameto San Pasqual to accept the position of cashier in the eating-house.The old adobe ranch was still deserted--the kitchen door still wideopen. It was the only vacant dwelling in San Pasqual, and the womanwith the baby decided to move in. She hired a Mexican woman to cleanthe house, sent to Bakersfield for some installment furniture and to LosAngeles for some assorted seeds. About a week later a Cahuilla buck withhis squaw alighted from a north-bound train and were met by the womanwith the baby girl. That night the entire party took possession of theHat Ranch.
That first mistress of the Hat Ranch was Donna Corblay's mother, sobefore we plunge into the heart of our story and present to the readerDonna Corblay as she appeared at twenty years of age behind the counterat the eating-house on the night that Bob McGraw rode into her life onhis Roman-nosed mustang, Friar Tuck, a short history of those earlieryears at the Hat Ranch will be found to repay the time given to itsperusal.
For more than sixteen years after her arrival in San Pasqual, Donna'smother had presided behind the eating-house pay counter. She was quietand uncommunicative--a handsome woman whose chief beauty lay in hereyes--wonderful for their brilliance and color and the shadows thatlurked in them, like the ghosts of a sorrow ineffable. Up to the day shedied nobody in San Pasqual knew very much about her--where she came fromor why she came. She gave no confidences and invited none. In a generalway it was known that she was a widow. Her husband had gone away andnever returned, and it was a moot question in San Pasqual whether theWidow Corblay was grass or natural. Be that as it may, the fact remainsthat the absent one was missed and that his wife remained faithful tohis memory, as several frontier gentlemen, who had sought her hand inmarriage, might have testified had they so desired.
Mrs. Corblay lived for her child, and was accused of being wantonlyand sinfully extravagant in her manner of dressing this child. Shemaintained and supported two Indian servants, which fact alone raisedher a notch or two socially above the wives, sisters and daughters ofthe railroad men and local business men who lived in the cottages westof the tracks. A great many of these estimable females disliked heraccordingly and charged her with "'puttin' on airs." Indeed, more thanone of them had ventured the suggestion that Mrs. Corblay had a past,and that her child was its outward expression. Of course, they couldn'tprove anything, but--and there the matter rested, abruptly. That "but"ended it, even as the tracks end at the bumper in a roundhouse. One feltthe jar just the same.
Some hint of this provincial interest in her and her affairs must havereached Mrs. Corblay shortly after her arrival, so with true feminineobstinacy she declined to alleviate the abnormal curiosity whichgnawed at the heart of the little community. She died as she had lived,considerable of a mystery, and San Pasqual, retaining its resentment ofthis mystery, visited its resentment upon Donna Corblay when Donna,in the course of time, gave evidence that she, also, possessed anultra-feminine, almost heroic capacity for attending strictly to her ownbusiness and permitting others to attend to theirs.
Early in her occupation of the adobe ranch house Mrs. Corblay hadinaugurated the hat industry, with fresh vegetables as a side line. Thegarden was presided over by a dolorous squaw who responded to the ratherfanciful appellation of Soft Wind. Sam Singer, her buck, was a stolid,stodgy savage, with eyes like the slits in a blackberry pie. Originallythe San Pasqualians had christened him "Psalm Singer," because of thefact that once, during a revival held by an itinerant evangelist ina tent next door to the Silver Dollar saloon, the buck had attendedregularly, attracted by the melody of a little portable organ, theplaintive strains of which appeared to charm his heathen soul. Anunorthodox citizen, in the sheer riot of his imagination, had saddledthe buck with his new name. It had stuck to him, and since in thevernacular psalm singer was pronounced "sam singer," the Indian came intime to be known by that name and would answer to none other.
Donna grew up slightly different from the other little girls in SanPasqual. For instance: she was never allowed to play in the dirt of themain street with other children; she wore white dresses that were alwaysclean, new ribbons in her hair; she always carried a handkerchief; sheattended the little public school with the belfry but no bell, and hermother trained her in domestic science and the precepts of religion,which, lacking definite direction perhaps by reason of the fact thatthere was no church in San Pasqual, served, nevertheless, as a bulwarkagainst the assaults of vice and vulgarity which, in a frontier town,are very thinly veiled. As a child she was neither precocious nor shy.From a rather homely, long-legged gangling girl of fourteen she emergedapparently by a series of swift transitions into a young lady atsixteen, giving promise of a beauty which lay, not so much inher physical attractions, which were generous, but in that easilydiscernible nobility of character which indicates beauty of soul--thatsuperlative beauty which entitles its possessor to be alluded to as"sweet," rather than pretty or handsome. At the dawn of womanhood shewas a lovely little girl, kind, affectionate, imaginative, distinctlyvirginal,
--a flower... born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
When Donna was nearly seventeen years old her mother died. It was theconsensus of opinion that heart trouble had something to do with it. Infact, Mrs. Corblay had often complained of pains in her heart and wassubject to fainting spells
; besides which, there was that in her eyeswhich seemed to predicate a heartache of many years' standing. At anyrate, she fainted at the eating-house one day and they carried her home.She passed away very quietly the same night, leaving an estate whichconsisted of Donna, the two Indian servants, and a quantity of coin ina teapot in the cupboard at the Hat Ranch which upon investigationwas found to total the stupendous sum of two hundred and twenty-eightdollars and ninety-five cents.
There was no one except Donna to attend to the funeral arrangements, andfor eight hours following her mother's death she was too distracted tothink of anything but her great grief. Soft Wind prepared her mistressfor the grave after a well-meant but primitive fashion, while Sam Singersquatted all morning in the sand in front of the compound and smokedinnumerable cigarettes. Presently he got up, went to his own littlecabin within the enclosure and was invisible for ten minutes. Whenhe emerged he was clad in a new pair of "bull breeches," a whitestiff-bosomed shirt without a collar but with a brass collar buttondoing duty nevertheless, while a red silk handkerchief, with the endsdrawn through a ring fashioned from a horseshoe nail, enveloped hisswarthy neck. He had rummaged through the stock of hats and appropriateda Grand Army hat with cord and tassels, and arrayed thus Sam Singerwalked up the tracks to San Pasqual.
Arrived here Sam's very appearance heralded news of grave importance atthe Hat Ranch. Such extraordinary and unwonted attention to dresscould portend but one of two things--a journey or a funeral. Inasmuch,however, as Sam was coatless and Mrs. Corblay had been carried home illthe day before, San Pasqual allowed itself one guess and won.
To those who sought to question him, however, Sam Singer had nothingmore polite than a tribal grunt. He proceeded directly to the SilverDollar saloon, where he held converse with a man who seemed muchinterested in the news which Sam had to impart, for he nodded gravelyseveral times, gave Sam fifty cents and a cigar and then hurried aroundto the public telephone station in "Doc" Taylor's drug store.
Five minutes later, by some mysterious person, Mrs. Daniel Pennycook,wife of the yardmaster, was informed over the telephone that DonnieCorblay's mother was dead.
"So I understand" replied Mrs. Pennycook volubly. "Poor thing! There wasalways somethin' so mysterious like about--"
The use of the word "like" was habit with Mrs. Pennycook. She rarelytook a decided stand in anything except Mr. Pennycook, and alwaysmodified her modifying adjective with the word "like"; an annoyingpractice which had always rendered her an object of terror to Mrs.Corblay. To the latter it always seemed as if Mrs. Pennycook wasdesirous of saying something nasty, but lacked the courage to come outflatfooted with it.
Her unknown informant interrupted, or attempted to interrupt, but Mrs.Pennycook was now started on her favorite topic, in such haste that shefailed to give the customary telephonic challenge:
"Who's speaking, please?"
She continued. "Yes, she was kinder quiet like any kept to herselflike--"
"Well," said the unknown, "she's dead now, and that little daughter o'hers is all alone down there with her Indian woman. If you knew Mrs.Corblay was dead, why in blue blazes didn't you or some other woman inthis heartless village go down there and comfort that child? I've askedthree of your neighbors already, but they're washin' or dustin' orcookin' or somethin'."
"I was so terrible shocked like when I heard it--"
"Well, if the shock's over, for decency's sake, Mrs. Pennycook, go downto the Hat Ranch and keep that little girl comp'ny till this afternoon."
"Who's talkin'?" demanded Mrs. Pennycook belligerently.
"I am."
"Who are you?"
"Nobody!"
For several seconds Mrs. Pennycook shot questions into the transmitter,but receiving no response she hung up, furious at having been denied theinalienable right of her sex to the last word. Shortly thereafterher worthy spouse, Dan Pennycook, came in for his lunch. To him Mrs.Pennycook imparted the tale of the strange man who had rung her up,demanding that she go down to the Hat Ranch and see Donnie Corblay.Pennycook's stupid good-natured face clouded.
"Then," he demanded, "why don't you do it? I've been workin' with thatstring of empties below town all mornin', an' if any woman in thischaritable community passed me goin' to the Hat Ranch I didn't see her.It's a shame. Put on your other things right after lunch, Arabella, an'go down. I'll go with you."
"But the gall o' the man, askin' me to do this! I intended goin' anyhow,but him ringin' me up so sudden like, I--"
"My dear," said Mr. Pennycook, "he paid you a compliment."
"Humph" responded Mrs. Pennycook. Then she sniffed. She continued tosniff at intervals during the meal; she was still sniffing when latershe joined her husband at the front gate and set off with him down thetracks to the Hat Ranch.
Arrived at the Hat Ranch Mrs. Pennycook saw at once that Donna was "tooupset like" to have any of the details of her mother's funeral thrustupon her. Here was a situation which required the supervision of a calm,executive person--Mrs. Daniel Pennycook, for instance. At any rateMrs. Pennycook decided to take charge. She was first on the scene andnaturally the task was hers, not only as a matter of principle but alsoby right of discovery.
Now, under the combined attentions of Donna, Mrs. Corblay and Soft Wind,the house, while primitive, had, nevertheless, been made comfortable andkept immaculate. But there is a superstition rampant in all provincialcommunities which dictates that the first line of action to be pursuedwhen there is a death in the family is to scrub the house thoroughlyfrom cellar to garret, and Mrs. Pennycook had been inoculated with thevirus of this superstition very early in life. She tucked up her skirts,seized a broom and a mop, rounded up Soft Wind and proceeded to producechaos where neatness and order had always reigned.
It was at this juncture that Donna Corblay first gave evidence of havinga mind of her own. She dried her tears and gently but firmly informedMrs. Pennycook that the house had been thoroughly cleaned and scrubbedthree days previous. She begged Mrs. Pennycook to desist. Mrs. Pennycookdesisted, for if Donna couched her request in the language of entreaty,her young eyes flashed a stern command, and Mrs. Pennycook was notdeficient in the intuition of her sex. So she composed herself in arocking chair and by blunt brutal questioning presently ascertained thatMrs. Corblay had left her daughter two hundred and twenty-eight dollarsand ninety-five cents.
This decided Mrs. Pennycook. She dilated upon the importance of having aclergyman come down from Bakersfield for the funeral, and suggested theservices (at the metropolitan rates usually accorded such functionaries)of the local alleged quartette, which regularly made night hideous inSan Pasqual's lone barber shop.
"It'll be kinder nice like, don't you think, Donna?" she queried.
Donna nodded dubiously.
"An' what was your poor dear mamma's church?" continued Mrs. Pennycook.
"She didn't have any" Donna answered, truthfully enough.
Again Mrs. Pennycook sniffed. "Well, then, I suppose Mr. Tillingham, ofthe Universal Church--"
Donna interrupted. "Mamma always knew she would be taken from me withoutwarning, and she often told me not to give her an expensive funeral. Ithink she would have liked some services but I can't afford them."
"But, dearie, that's so barbarous like!" exclaimed the dismayedSamaritan. "There ought to be some one to say some prayers an' sing ahymn or two."
"Mamma always said she wanted to be buried simply. She thought it wassweet and beautiful to have services, but not essential. She was alwaysskimping and saving for me, Mrs. Pennycook. She said I wasn't to wearmourning; that the--living needed more prayers than--the--dead. She--shesaid that when she was gone God would be good to her and that--I--shesaid I would need all the money we had."
"A-a-h-h-h!" breathed Mrs. Pennycook. She understood now. What a baggagethe girl was! How heartless, begrudging her poor dead mother the poorcomfort of a Christian burial, because she wanted the money for herself!Privately Mrs. Pennycook prophesied a bad ending for Donnie Corblay. Shewinked knowingl
y at her husband, then with truly feminine sarcasm:
"Well, at _least,_ Donna, you'll _have_ to buy a coffin an' a _grave_an' have the grave _dug_--"
"Sam Singer will attend to that. I'm going to bury mamma among theflowers at the end of our garden. I'll have a nice plain coffin made inSan Pasqual--"
"Oh!" Mrs. Pennycook trembled.
"Mamma always said," Donna continued, "that undertakers preyed on thedead and traded in human grief, and for me not to engage one for herfuneral. I'm going to do just what she told me to do, Mrs. Pennycook."
"Quite right, Donnie, quite right" interjected Mr. Pennycook. He wasan impulsive creature and even under the hypnotic eye of Mrs. P. hesometimes broke out of bounds.
"Daniel! Come!"
_Daniel!_ At the mention of his Christian name Mr. Pennycook quivered.He knew he was in for it now, but he didn't care. It occurred to himthat he might as well, to quote a homely proverb, "be hanged for a sheepas a lamb." He had visited the Hat Ranch to tender aid and sympathy, anddespite the impending visitation of his wife's wrath he resolved to bereckless for once and deliver the goods in bulk.
"Your poor mother was a sensible woman, Donnie girl," he told theorphan, "an' you're a dutiful daughter to follow out her last wishesunder these--er--deplorable circumstances--er--er--I mean it's aterrible hard thing to lose your mother, Donnie, an'--damme, Donnie, I'msorry. 'Pon my word, I'm sorry."
Mrs. Pennycook's lips moved, and while no sound issued therefrom,yet did Dan Pennycook, out of his many years of marital submission,comprehend the unspoken sentence:
"_Dan Pennycook, you're a fool!_"
"Ya-a-h" growled Mr. Pennycook, thoroughly aroused now and striving toappear belligerent. His wife silenced him with a look; then turned toDonna. She had a duty to perform. She was a great woman for "principle"and the performance of what she conceived to be her duty. She was awell-meaning but misguided person ordinarily, who loved a fight withher own family on the broad general ground that it denoted firmness ofcharacter. Mrs. Pennycook was so long on virtue and character herselfthat half her life was spent disposing of a portion of these attributesto the less fortunate members of her household.
She entered now upon a calm yet stern discussion of the perfectlyimpossible proceeding of making a private cemetery out of one's backyard; but Mr. Pennycook had recovered his poise and decided thathere was one of those rare occasions when it behooved him to declarehimself--by the way, a very rare proceeding with Mr. Pennycook, he beingknown in San Pasqual as the original Mr. Henpeck.
"Mrs. Pennycook," he thundered, "you will please 'tend to your ownbusiness, ma'am. Donnie, my dear, I'm goin' to wire Los Angeles an'order up a heap o' big red roses on 25--damme, Mrs. Pennycook, what thedevil are _you_ lookin' at, ma'am?"
"Nothing" she retorted, although it is a fact that had she been Medusaa singularly life-like replica of Dan Pennycook in concrete might havebeen produced, upon which the posterity of San Pasqual might gaze and bewarned of the dangers attendant upon mating with the Mrs. Pennycooks ofthis world.
Donna commenced to cry. Mr. Pennycook's sympathy, albeit checkedand moderated to a great extent by the presence of his wife, was,nevertheless, the most genuine sample of that rare commodity whichshe had received up to that moment. His action had been so--brave--sospontaneous--he knew--he understood; Dan Pennycook had a soul. Andbesides he was going to wire for some red roses--and O, how scarce werered roses in San Pasqual!
"O Mr. Pennycook, dear Mr. Pennycook" she wailed, and sought instantrefuge on his honest breast. She placed her arms around his neckand cried, and Mr. Pennycook cried also, until his single Sundayhandkerchief was used up--whereat he pleaded dumbly with his wife forher handkerchief--and was refused. So, like some great blubbering boy,he used his fists, while Mrs. Pennycook looked coldly on, working herlower lip and the tip of her nose, rabbit-fashion, for all the worldlike one who, having anticipated a sniff of the spices of Araby, hasdetected instead a shocking aroma of corned beef and cabbage.
It was a queer tableau, indeed; Donna weeping on Mr. Pennycook's breast,when every instinct of her sex, even the vaguest acceptance of traditionand custom, dictated that she should have wept on Mrs. Pennycook'sbreast. Mrs. Pennycook realized the incongruity of the situation and wasshrewd enough to attribute it to a strong aversion to her on the partof Donna Corblay. She resolved to make them both pay for herhumiliation--Dan, within the hour, Donna whenever the opportunity shouldoccur.