Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/70

 "Well, I'm glad to hear you say it," said Sarah, with assumed heartiness. "The way folks talk around here you'd think He'd been drinking all right. And some."

She sauntered back, leaving Clare to stare out of the open door again. Her face was impassive, for Sarah was watching her, but she was torn within by a thousand distracting thoughts. Something had set Tom off again; he only went on these periodic drinking spells when something set him off.

Was it her own visit to him? Had she had some effect after all, even this? She had seemed to make so little impression on him that night at the ranch.

"We've had some good times together, haven't we, Tom?"

"You've been mighty nice to me, Clare. I'm not forgetting that."

"Well then, what's the matter? I don't hardly sleep any more. Look here, look how loose this belt is! I just get to worrying, thinking maybe I've done something, and I can't sleep."

"We're mighty busy just now, you know."

"I've heard that before."

"Then," he went on, unusually patient for him, "we've got the Dowlings now, and they take a lot of looking after."

"You mean she does. The girl. Oh, I'm not so far away I don't hear things. If you're fool enough to fall for that sort of thing"

"What sort of thing?" He was ominously calm.

"Her making a joke out of you," she went on, recklessly. "What do you think you mean in her life? I'll bet she's laughing at you half the time."

"That'll do," he said roughly. "I've had all I'm taking. You haven't any claim on me and you know it. Now you get in that Lizzie of yours and go back home." Then more gently: "You'd better start anyhow. You've got a long ways to go."

But at this unexpected gentleness the shrew died in her, and suddenly she began to cry.

"I'm crazy about you, Tom. I never fooled you about that. And I thought you liked me too."