"By the way, my daughter--" said Mr. Ellsworth, sitting up uneasily.
"Never mind," said Dan Anderson, gently. "Miss Constance is all right. They'll take care of her just as well as I'll take care of you. Everybody will be more sociable by about noon to-morrow. The whole town's scared yet."
"I don't see anything very terrible about me," said Mr. Ellsworth.
"Oh, it isn't _you_," said Dan Anderson, calmly. "Nobody's afraid of _you_. It's your daughter--it's the woman. Don't you reckon Adam was about the scaredest thing in the wide, wide world about the time old Ma Eve set up her bakeshop under the spreading fig tree? I don't know that I make myself right plain--you see, it's sort of funny here. We aren't used to women any more."
"Oh, well, now, my dear sir, you see, my daughter--"
"I know all about her," said Dan Anderson, sharply.
"I don't doubt she thought I was a mere trifler. She couldn't understand that it isn't right for a man to stick to anything until he's found the right thing to stick to. I don't blame her the least bit in the world. She could only see what I _wasn't_ doing. I knew what I was _going_ to do, and I know it now." There was a gravity and certainty about Dan Anderson now that went through the self-consciousness of the man before him. Ellsworth looked at him intently. "We'll be here for a day or so," said he, "and meantime, it will seem a little strange for my daughter, I suppose--"
"You don't need to tell me about anything," said Dan Anderson. "Of course, her coming is a little inopportune. You see, Mr. Ellsworth, the morning stars are inopportune, and the sunrise every day, and the dew of heaven."
Ellsworth looked at him half in terror, and in his discomfort murmured something about going to look up his daughter.
"Now, that's mighty kind of you," said Dan Anderson. "But I know the way over there alone, and after I have taken you back to Uncle Jim's, I am going over there--alone. Wait till I get my coat. I don't wear it very often, but we'll just show you that we can dress up for the evening here, the same as they do in the States."
As Dan Anderson, his head bent down and his hands in his pockets, crossed the _arroyo_ alone, he met Curly coming the other way. Curly's brow was wrinkled, though he expressed a certain consciousness of the importance of his position in society at the time.