Under the bamboos she
scattered a handful of creamy petals on the golden brown earth, and rubbed
them into the ground with the point of her bronze shoe. Then she held up
her hand to her face, to smell the sweetness crushed out of the blossoms.
Why didn't Nick come?
There was a short cut leading from the land which she had selected off her
own immense ranch to sell to Nick Hilliard, and this way he sometimes took
if he were in a hurry. But she knew that he loved the path between the
pink walls of oleander, and preferred to come by it, though it was
longer. He ought to have been with her at least ten minutes ago, for she
had asked him to come early. She had said in the letter which she gave old
Simeon Harp to take to Nick, "This is your last night. There are a great,
great many things I want to talk to you about." But there was only one
thing about which she wished Nick Hilliard to talk to her, and there were
two reasons why she expected him to talk of it to-night.
One reason was, because he was going East, and planned to be gone a month,
a dreadful plan which she feared and detested. The second reason concerned
the anniversary of a certain event. Some people would have called the
event a tragedy, but to Carmen it had made life worth living.
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