irs? She decided for herself, bringing in the roast with an
entirely erroneous belief that she was moving briskly. An ancient Mexican
woman knows very well what the early months of marriage are. There is a
flame, and then there are ashes. Then the ashes must be removed by mutual
effort and embers are discovered. Then life is good and may run along
without any annoyances.

When the senor went up-stairs with scarcely a word to the senora, Antonia
looked within, seeming to notice nothing. But to herself she was saying:
"The time of ashes." The bustle of the domestic life was good at such a
time. She brought in the roast.

Harboro, with the keen senses of a healthy man who is hungry, knew that
the roast had been placed on the table, but he did not stir. The _Guide_
had slipped from his knee to the floor, and he was looking away to the
darkening tide of the Rio Grande. He had looked at his problem from every
angle, and now he was coming to a conclusion which did him credit.

... They had not been invited to the ball. Well, what had he done that
people who formerly had gone out of their way to be kind to him should
ignore him? (It did not occur to him for an instant that the cause lay
with Sylvia.) He was not a conceited man, but ... an eligible bachelor
must, certainly, be regarded more interestedly than a man with a wife,
particularly in a community where the young women were blooming and
eligible men were scarce. They had drawn him into their circle because
they had regarded him as a desirable husband for one of their young women.
He remembered now how the processes of the social mill had brought him up
before this young woman and that until he had met them all: how, often, he
had found himself having a _tete-a-tete_ with some kindly disposed girl
whom he never would have thought of singling out for special attention. He
hadn't played their game. He might have remained a bachelor and all would
have been well. There would always have been the chance of something
happening. But he had found a wife outside their circle. He had, in
effect, snubbed them before they had snubbed him. He remembered now how
entirely absorbed he had been in his affair with Sylvia, and how the
entire community had become a mere indistinct background during those days
when he walked with her and planned their future. There wasn't any
occasion for him to feel offended. He had ignored the town--and the town
had paid him back in his own coin.

He had