he saw only desert, a great gray interminable blanket spattered with creosote brush. All the trees, all the bushes, were barbed and cruel and menacing—a biznaga, pointing like a finger of scorn toward the sky, an unkempt palo verde, the eternal Joshua trees, like charred stumps that had stood in the path of a fire. Over this vast waste played odd tricks of light and shade, and up above hung the sun, a living flame, merciless, ineffably pure, and somehow terrible.
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked the girl.
Eden shrugged. “Hell’s burnt out and left the embers,” he remarked.
She smiled. “The desert is an acquired taste,” she explained. “No one likes it at first. I remember the night, long ago, when I got off the train at Eldorado with poor dad. A little girl from a Philadelphia suburb—a peace that was old and settled and civilized. And there I stood in the midst of this savage-looking world. My heart broke.”
“Poor kid,” said Eden. “But you like it now?”
“Yes—after a while—well, there’s a sort of weird beauty in this sun-drenched country. You waken to it in the course of time. And in the spring, after the rains—I’d like to take you over round Palm Springs then. The verbena is like a carpet of old rose, and the ugliest trees put forth the most delicate and lovely blossoms. And at any time of the year there’s always the desert nights, with the pale stars overhead, and the air full of peace and calm and rest.”
“Oh, no doubt it’s a great place to rest,” Eden agreed. “But as it happens, I wasn’t very tired.”
“Who knows?” she said. “Perhaps before we say goodbye
