Besides at that
moment Helen saw Bauer speaking to her and the next moment he and her
mother had walked slowly off together up the tortuous village street and
were lost to sight in the crowd.

Van Shaw sat down on the kiva, and smiled a little. But his face was
pale, and evidently for one of the rare occasions in his life he was
truly and desperately in earnest.

"You can't blame me, can you?"

"It's--it's simply impossible. It's out of the question. I have not
known you two days."

"It doesn't take lighting two days to hit," said Van Shaw doggedly.

"I won't listen. I forbid your talking to me," said Helen haughtily.

"All right. But you can't forbid my thinking of you."

"But I can and I will refuse to be in your company!" said Helen. She was
angry now at something undefined in Van Shaw's manner. "If you do not
leave me at once, I will try to leave you." She actually made a movement
to rise and put her foot on the ground at the edge of the kiva. Van Shaw
instantly got up and said quickly, "Of course I'll go. But I can't
change my feelings and never shall. Promise me one thing. Don't believe
all the stories you may hear about me."

He had turned and walked up the street and Helen sank back with a
strange feeling of relief mingled with shame and again that other
feeling--what was it, pride? The sense of power over men? The feeling
that her beauty was a gift or something else? She was frightened at it
all put together and felt irritated to be left alone by the rest of the
party as she looked around at the medley of old and new jumbled together
in that Hopi village. And then the next reaction left her nervous and
somewhat hysterical as she tried to imagine such a thing in a book. She
actually laughed and the next moment Miss Gray and Walter appeared, at
the edge of the kiva. Miss Gray came running up to her.

"It's a shame to leave you here alone. How did that happen?"

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't been alone long. How strange everything
is."

"Yes. And it gets stranger the more you see of it. Talavenka and her
mother have asked us to eat with them. They will have something ready in
about an hour. You had better go in and rest there a while. It's too hot
out here. Where are your jinrikisha men?"

"Van Shaw just went up the street," said Walter looking closely at
Helen.

"We don't need him," said Miss Gray. "Mr. Douglas, will you get Mr.
Coleman and Mr. Calder? There they are, over there. I'll help, and we