Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/274

 and Tom found that the Indians intended to sell him no hay, his own nerves suffered.

"What's the use of clean table napkins every meal?"

"Because I like to think that I live like a lady."

"Well, the sooner we can this lady-business and get down to brass tacks, the better. It takes water to wash these things."

"It takes work, too, Tom."

"That's what I'm telling you."

He was sorry for that, however. He went into Judson, bought a great package of paper napkins, and brought them out. And because it was to save her, although she hated them, she used them thereafter.

The tragedy was that because they still cared passionately, each could hurt the other so easily. And their quarreling came only at the end of the day, when they were tired. But as the hot weather kept on, without a cloud in the sky, they found the making-up a harder matter. There were times when they went to their common bed, each to lie as far from the other as possible, in silence, until the one who felt most guilty put out a tentative hand, possibly long hours afterwards, and there was a reconciliation, abject and loving.

Such a quarrel came one day when Kay found that he was carrying the revolver about with him.

"I thought you'd promised to let Little Dog alone, Tom?"

"Who said anything about Little Dog?"

How could he tell her that the Indians were nursing their injury to their breasts? That there had been threats against him, and that on the roads the old full-bloods of the Reservation passed him without speaking to him, sitting the seats of their wagons like ancient kings, their Oriental faces impassive, and sold their hay hither and yon, but not to him.

"If you made that promise you ought to keep it, Tom."

"If I get killed you could go back East, eh? Well, maybe that's the best thing that could happen to me. And you too."

It was childish. He knew it and so did she. When