Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/204

 "Nan," Bob asked suddenly and bluntly, "when are you going home?"

She answered as bluntly and with a touch of defiance, "I don't know."

They sat in silence for a time.

"Do you think, Nan"—he asked gently—"that you would be content here for long!—that the glamour would not wear off?"

"I love it—this life."

"They are tremendously uneasy about you—the family."

"So they've written. I'm threatened with a guardian if I don't go home. I've asked for a month's reprieve."

"And at the end of that time you'll go?"

"Or stay—for keeps."

"Oh, Nan!" That was all. He arose quickly and said good night, adding in a voice which sounded unnatural from the effort it cost him to speak: "Be careful to-morrow; they may all be drunk."

The celebration of San Juan's day began long before daylight, and the Montejos were out by lantern-light killing the goats under Nan's window; men, women, and children