an' clean like young boys their first time in the ring before they've learned its rottenness an' how to double-cross an' lay down to the bettin' odds an' the fight-fans. Yep; it is brave. Say, Saxon, you see things, don't you?" His pause was almost wistful, and he looked at her and studied her with a caressing softness that ran through her in resurgent thrills. "D'ye know, I'd just like you to see me fight some time-a real fight, with something doin' every moment. I'd be proud to death to do it for you. An' I'd sure fight some with you lookin' on an' understandin'. That'd be a fight what is, take it from me. An' that's funny, too. I never wanted to fight before a woman in my life. They squeal and screech an' don't understand. But you'd understand. It's dead open an' shut you would."
A little later, swinging along the flat of the valley, through the little clearings of the farmers and the ripe grain-stretches golden in the sunshine, Billy turned to Saxon again.
"Say, you've ben in love with fellows, lots of times. Tell me about it. What's it like?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I only thought I was in love-and not many times, either-"
"Many times!" he cried.
"Not really ever," she assured him, secretly exultant at his unconscious jealousy. "I never was really in love. If I had been I'd be married now. You see, I couldn't see anything else to it but to marry a man if I loved him."
"But suppose he didn't love you?"
"Oh, I don't know," she smiled, half with facetiousness and half with certainty and pride. "I think I could make him love me."
"I guess you sure could," Billy proclaimed enthusiastically.
"The trouble is," she went on, "the men that loved me I never cared for that way.-Oh, look!"
A cottontail rabbit had scuttled across the road, and a tiny dust cloud lingered like smoke, marking the way of his flight. At the next turn a dozen quail exploded into the air from under the noses of the horses. Billy and Saxon exclaimed in mutual delight.
"Gee," he muttered, "I almost wisht I'd ben born a farmer. Folks wasn't made to live in cities."
"Not our kind, at least," she agreed. Followed a pause and a long sigh. "It's all so beautiful. It would be a dream just to live all your life in it. I'd like to be an Indian squaw sometimes."
Several times Billy checked himself on the verge of speech.
"About those fellows you thought you was in love with," he said finally. "You ain't told me, yet."
"You want to know?" she asked. "They didn't amount to anything."
"Of course I want to know. Go ahead. Fire away."
"Well, first there was Al Stanley-"
"What did he do for a livin'?" Billy demanded, almost as with authority.
"He was a gambler."
Billy's face abruptly stiffened, and she could see his eyes cloudy with doubt in the quick glance he flung at her.
"Oh, it was all right," she laughed. "I was only eight years old. You see, I'm beginning at the beginning. It was after my mother died and when I was adopted by Cady. He kept a hotel and saloon. It was down in Los Angeles. Just a small hotel. Workingmen, just common laborers, mostly, and some railroad men, stopped at it, and I guess Al Stanley got his share of their wages. He was so handsome and so quiet and soft-spoken. And he had the nicest eyes and the softest, cleanest hands. I can see them now. He played with me sometimes, in the afternoon, and gave me candy and little presents. He used to sleep most of the day. I didn't know why, then. I thought he was a fairy prince in disguise. And then he got killed, right in the bar-room, but first he killed the man that killed him. So that was the end of that love affair.
"Next was after the asylum, when I was thirteen and living with my brother-I've lived with him ever since. He was a boy that drove a bakery wagon. Almost every morning, on the way to school, I used to pass him. He would come driving down Wood Street and turn in on Twelfth. Maybe it was because he drove a horse that attracted me. Anyway, I must have loved him for a couple of months. Then he lost his job, or something, for another boy drove the wagon. And we'd never even spoken to each other.
"Then there was a bookkeeper when I was sixteen. I seem to run to bookkeepers. It was a bookkeeper at the laundry that Charley Long beat up. This other one was when I was working in Hickmeyer's Cannery. He had soft hands, too. But I quickly got all I wanted of him. He was… well, anyway, he had ideas like your boss. And I never really did love him, truly and honest, Billy. I felt from the first that he wasn't just right. And when I was working in the paper-box factory I thought I loved a clerk in Kahn's Emporium-you know, on Eleventh and Washington. He was all right. That was the trouble with him. He was too much all right. He didn't have any life in him, any go. He wanted to marry me, though. But somehow I couldn't see it. That shows I didn't love him. He was narrow-chested and skinny, and his hands were always cold and fishy. But my! he could dress-just like he came out of a bandbox. He said he was going to drown himself, and all kinds of things, but I broke with him just the same.
"And after that… well, there isn't any after that. I must have got particular, I guess, but I didn't see anybody I could love. It seemed more like a game with the men I met, or a fight. And we never fought fair on either side. Seemed as if we always had cards up our sleeves. We weren't honest or outspoken, but instead it seemed as if we were trying to take advantage of each other. Charley Long was honest, though. And so was that bank cashier. And even they made me have the fight feeling harder than ever. All of them always made me feel I had to take care of myself. They wouldn't. That was sure."
She stopped and looked with interest at the clean profile of his face as he watched and guided the homes. He looked at her inquiringly, and her eyes laughed lazily into his as she stretched her arms.
"That's all," she concluded. "I've told you everything, which I've never done before to any one. And it's your turn now."
"Not much of a turn, Saxon. I've never cared for girls-that is, not enough to want to marry 'em. I always liked men better-fellows like Billy Murphy. Besides, I guess I was too interested in trainin' an' fightin' to bother with women much. Why, Saxon, honest, while I ain't ben altogether good-you understand what I mean-just the same I ain't never talked love to a girl in my life. They was no call to."
"The girls have loved you just the same," she teased, while in her heart was a curious elation at his virginal confession.
He devoted himself to the horses.
"Lots of them," she urged.
Still he did not reply.
"Now, haven't they?"
"Well, it wasn't my fault," he said slowly. "If they wanted to look sideways at me it was up to them. And it was up to me to sidestep if I wanted to, wasn't it? You've no idea, Saxon, how a prizefighter is run after. Why, sometimes it's seemed to me that girls an' women ain't got an ounce of natural shame in their make-up. Oh, I was never afraid of them, believe muh, but I didn't hanker after 'em. A man's a fool that'd let them kind get his goat.
"Maybe you haven't got love in you," she challenged.
"Maybe I haven't," was his discouraging reply. "Anyway, I don't see myself lovin' a girl that runs after me. It's all right for Charley-boys, but a man that is a man don't like bein' chased by women."
"My mother always said that love was the greatest thing in the world," Saxon argued. "She wrote poetrys about it, too. Some of them were published in the San Jose Mercury."
"What do you think about it?"
"Oh, I don't know," she baffled, meeting his eyes with another lazy smile. "All I know is it's pretty good to be alive a day like this."
"On a trip like this-you bet it is," he added promptly.
At one o'clock Billy turned off the road and drove into an open space among the trees.
"Here's where we eat," he announced. "I thought it'd be better to have a lunch by ourselves than atop at one of these roadside dinner counters. An' now, just to make