"Perhaps; but I shall come back here. Once this country gets on its feet I can sell for a decent price. There's going to be a rush to Mexico some day when people find that they can come without risking their lives and their money." "Do you think that time is coming soon?" "I hope it is. This last move looks hopeful. If Obregon can establish a good government, he will. Of course, our people will have to be patient. At any rate, I'm going to risk it." "Yes," smiled Hard, "you would feel that way, of course." "Money getting isn't such an ugly business, Henry, when you risk something. It puts a bit of romance into the thing. I think I rather despise people who make money just by sitting in an office and guessing right." "Clara, how old are you? Sixteen?" "I don't mind telling you that I'm older than I look, and it's a wonder to me after the hard knocks I've had. Well, do you think you can hobble back to Soria's?" "Let's wait a little longer. I could wish it a little cooler." "If you'd wear a sombrero instead of that white thing----" "Can't. I'm not built for a sombrero. Makes me look like the villain in a show." Clara burst into laughter. "Henry," she said, "what an absurd world this is once a human being cuts loose from his original moorings!" "Yes? It's an almighty hot world when he cuts loose from a roof and an ice-water tank, I've noticed." "I'm not thinking of ordinary things--I'm thinking of you and me and Boston," pursued Clara, firmly. "Clara, I can stand a good deal, especially from you, but if you insist upon talking about Boston I'm likely to do something that we'll both regret." "I was just thinking that if you and I had stayed in Boston, in our own little niches, as our kind of people usually do, what would we be doing?" went on Clara, meditatively. "I would be having a gin fizz at the club," said Hard, pensively, "to be followed possibly by a game of bridge and a dinner--a real, human dinner, not just food--at my brother John's." "If I had stayed where I belonged, or where everybody said I belonged when my father died and the family income disappeared," said Clara, persistently, "I would be teaching music in a girls' school, and planning a trip to Italy with a lot of other middle-aged spinsters. Instead of that, I put all that I had into a two years' study in London and Paris and fell in with a wandering Englishman, married him, and here I am." "Well, I'm glad you didn't stay where you belonged, Clara, for quite apart from the pleasure of your company, which under sane conditions I find very delightful, I don't seem to see you in the role of a middle-aged spinster. Still, you might easily have been one. I know some charming girls in Boston who have gone that path." "So do I," soberly. "Some of them so much more charming than some of my married friends that I don't quite get the idea. Some of Nature's blunders, I suppose. Well, shall we start?" "We'd better. I think it's going to be some walk."