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"Mariposa," he said, making each syllable clearly distinct. He held up the little wild waving spotted thing, the common mariposa lily.

"Mariposa?" He repeated the word encouragingly, even sweetly, making the sound of it beautiful.

"You assaulted your wife," Eugene said loudly.

The Spaniard still held his eyes open wide. If the staring smile was a slight, at the same time he was presenting his stupid flower.

"But in your heart," Eugene said, and then he was lost. It was a lifelong trouble, he had never been able to express himself at all when it came to the very moment. And now, on a cliff, in a wind, to...

Eugene thrust both hands forward and took hold of the other man, not half compassing the vast waist. But he recognized the weight that was so light on its feet, and he had only to make one move more, to unsettle that weight and let it go. Under his watchful eyes the flower went out of the other's loosening, softening hand: it lay on the wind, and sank. One more move and the man would go too, drop out of sight. He would go down below and it took only a touch.

Eugene clung to the Spaniard now, almost as if he had waited for him a long time with longing, almost as if he loved him, and had found a lasting refuge. He could have caressed the side of the massive face with the great pores in the loose, hanging cheek. The Spaniard closed his eyes.

Then a bullish roar opened out of him. He wagged his enormous head. What seemed to be utterances of the wildest order came from the wide mouth, together with the dinner's old reek. Eugene half expected more bones. He could see everything more than plainly. The Spaniard's eyes also were open to the widest, and his nostrils had the hairs raised erect in them.

Eugene suddenly lost his balance and nearly fell, so that he had to pull himself back by helplessly seizing hold of the big man. He listened on, perforce, to the voice that did not stop.

It was a terrible recital. Eugene drew back as far as possible and presently began to glare at him—a man laying himself altogether bare like that, with no shame, no respect.... What was he digging up to confess to, making such a spectacle? To whom did he think he prayed for relief? Eugene's hands waited nerveless moment after moment, while his ears were beaten upon, his whole body, indeed.

Abruptly—and causing silence as with a stopper—the Spaniard's broad-brimmed hat shot up in the wind and was blown—to sea? Landward. Eugene felt compelled to: he let go the Spaniard and ran hurrying to catch the hat and bring it back. Now it lifted ahead, turned over, clung to a wall, flew up again. Eugene had to climb a rather difficult part of the cliff. He saw the hat, and reached it where it danced about a bush, and got it in his hand.

Eugene lost his own hat in the chase; but inspiration was with him now, and he put on the Spaniard's. Knees bent on the pinnacle, raincoat whipping, he reached up and set it on his head. It stayed on, and at the same time it shadowed him. The band inside was warm and fragrant still. Elation ran all through his body, like the first runner that ever knew the way to it. His hands shaking with extreme care, as particularly as if he could see himself again in Emma's mirror with the little snapshot stuck in the corner, he set the brim just so.

He returned over the rocks and placed himself and looked back at the other man, eyes protected. It was in all confidence that he took fresh hold of him, but this time—how cruel!—he could not move him. He could not budge him an inch. He stood there with his hands in appeal on the Spaniard's silent arms. But this time the Spaniard had hold of him. It was a hold of hard, callused fingers like prongs.

And the Spaniard would have looked small down there, all the way down below. Suppose there were a little guitar, no bigger than a watch. Eugene stood waiting there as if he listened to sirens. Then within himself he felt a strange sensation, strange in itself but, alas, he recognized it. He had felt it before—always before when very tired, and always when lying in