Pearl laughed a single note, like her father's. "Poor Rudolf!" she
muttered, "the men are all jealous of him, even Hugh."

Fortunately, the boy did not hear her, although Bob Flick did, as she
intended he should.

"I do love mother," Hugh added plaintively, "but I can't love the people
she mostly likes, so I came as far away as I could, and here," his face
was irradiated in one of its quick changes, "I've been walking up and
down and hearing and seeing things; listening to the quail and the
doves; and a while ago there was a humming-bird; and did you ever smell
the desert as sweet as it is this morning?" He lifted his head and
sniffed ecstatically. "I've been turning the whole morning into music.
It's all gold and green and gay with little silver trumpets through it,
and now and again the moan of the doves. I'm going to work it out as
soon as we get home. That is," he shrugged his shoulders impatiently,
"if that Hanson has gone. He stops all the music and the color." This
was Hugh's invariable plaint when any one was about whom he disliked.

"Oh, forget him," cried Pearl. "Don't be a cross, Hughie." She spoke
with a half impatient, half teasing tenderness. It was remarkable that
she showed no resentment toward the boy for the difficulties in which
she found herself entangled, although his intuitions and the almost
superstitious respect which they were accorded in the Gallito household
might be said to have caused the disturbing investigations into Hanson's
past. That Pearl herself disregarded these intuitions in this case was
to those about her the strongest proof of her infatuation; but she never
dreamed of blaming the boy or harboring rancor against him for this
mischief he had done. On the contrary, she accepted it fatalistically.