176 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



ranch desk was revivified by the red blood of dis- 

 cussion. 



There are some in particular whose memories 

 those who knew them would do well to cherish in the 

 inner places of their souls, were the cherishing of 

 memories not so woefully out of date. 



" Aren't you tired of being asked every day how 

 you are?" I said, whilst filling a vase for one I loved 

 with crimson roses from my garden — the red, red 

 roses I always saved for her. 



"I am!" she retorted, looking up at me with 

 blithe, smiling eyes. "But I always say I am very 

 well. You understand, don't you ?" 



Yes — I understood. 



And men too — young, gifted men, perhaps, with 

 all the world before them where to choose, and who 

 instead have found strength to choose sacrifice, 

 abnegation, in one form or another; who might 

 have snatched from the hand of Fate happiness or 

 greater length of days, but who, because these could 

 only be had at cost to some other, have refrained. 



Of the selfish who accepted one's service as their 

 right, the querulous who complained because there 

 is too much sun or not enough, who lived poorly in 

 their homes yet carped at the good fare here pro- 

 vided for them, who prated everlastingly of "God's 

 Country" — meaning thereby as likely as not some 

 obscure village or smoky city — and shut their eyes 

 to the actual God's Country to which they were tem- 

 porarily exiled: who when I (myself exiled, though 

 for another cause than theirs) drive them up on 

 the mesa to behold the resplendence of the sunset 



