She remarked that Jim was always encouraging to new-comers, and remarked
this in a way that implied that some new-comers possibly needed hazing.

"And I am up at dawn and hard at it for six hours before midday."

"Yes, it is wonderful!" she admitted, with a mock show of being
overwhelmingly impressed. "Nobody in the world ever worked ten hours a
day before!"

"I'm doing more than any man that I pay two-fifty. I do perspire, and if
you don't call that earning your bread with the sweat of your brow, why
this is an astoundingly illogical world!"

"There is a great difference between sporadic display and that continuity
which is the final proof of efficiency," she corrected him.

"Long, involved sentences often indicate the loss of an argument!"
declared Jack.

"There isn't any argument!" said Mary with superior disinterestedness.

By common inspiration they had established a truce of nonsense. She still
called him Jack; he still called her Mary. It was the only point of tacit
admission that they had ever met before he asked her to show a
prospective settler a parcel of land.

Their new relations were as the house of cards of fellowship: cards of
glass, iridescent and brittle, mocking the idea that there could be
oblivion of the scene in Lang's store, the crack of Leddy's pistol in the
_arroyo_, or the pulse of Jack's artery under her thumb! She was sure
that he could forget these experiences, even if she could not. That was
his character, as she saw it, free of clinging roots of yesterday's
events, living some new part every day.

In the house of cards she set up a barrier, which he saw as a veil over
her eyes. Not once had he a glimpse of their depths. There was only the
surface gleam of sunbeams and sometimes of rapier-points, merry but
significant. She frequently rode out to the pass and occasionally, when
his day's work was done, he would ride to the foot of the range to meet
her, and as they came back he often sang, but never whistled. Indeed, he
had ceased to whistle altogether. Perhaps he regarded the omission as an
insurance against duels.

Aside from nonsense they had common interests in cultural and daily life,
from the Eternal Painter's brushwork to how to dress a salad. She did
extend her approval for the generous space which he was allowing for
flower-beds, and advised him in the practical construction of his
kitchen; while the Doge decorated the living-room with Delia Robbias,
which, however, ne