Then I watch, and I see, that's all."
It came to Hare afterward with a little start of surprise that Mescal's
purposeless, yet all-satisfying, watchful gaze had come to be part of his
own experience. It was inscrutable to him, but he got from it a fancy,
which he tried in vain to dispel, that something would happen to them out
there on the desert.
And then he realized that when they returned to the camp-fire they
seemed freed from this spell of the desert. The blaze-lit circle was
shut in by the darkness; and the immensity of their wild environment,
because for the hour it could not be seen, lost its paralyzing effect.
Hare fell naturally into a talkative mood. Mescal had developed a
vivacity, an ambition which contrasted strongly with her silent moods;
she became alive and curious, human like the girls he had known in the
East, and she fascinated him the more for this complexity.
The July rains did not come; the mists failed; the dews no longer
freshened the grass, and the hot sun began to tell on shepherds and
sheep. Both sought the shade. The flowers withered first--all the
blue-bells and lavender patches of primrose, and pale-yellow lilies, and
white thistle-blossoms.
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