Disappearing for a moment, he returned, bringing back the pail empty.
"I have enough for two days now," he said--"and longer.

What you brought me at the beginning of the week has turned beautifully sour,--a 'lovely curd' as our cook at home used to say--, and with that 'lovely curd' and plenty of fruit I'm living in luxury." Here he felt in his pockets and took out a handful of coins.

"That's right, isn't it ?" She counted them over as he gave them to her--bit one with her strong white teeth and nodded.
"You don't pay ME"-- she said, emphatically--"It's the Plaza you pay." "How many times will you remind me of that!" he replied, with a laugh--"Of course I know I don't pay YOU! Of course I know I pay the Plaza!--that amazing hotel and 'sanatorium' with a tropical garden and no comfort--" "It is more comfortable than this"-- she said, with a disparaging glance at his log dwelling.
"How do YOU know ?" and he laughed again--"What have YOU ever experienced in the line of hotels?
You are employed at the Plaza to fetch and carry;--to wait on the wretched invalids who come to California for a 'cure' of diseases incurable--" "YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt.
"No! I only pretend to be!" "Why do you pretend ?" "Oh, Manella! What a question! Why do we all pretend ?--all!--every human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should go mad!" Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly.
"I do not understand you"-- she said--"Why do you talk nonsense about the sun?
I suppose you ARE ill after all,--you have an illness of the head." He nodded with mock solemnity.
"That's it! You're a wise woman, Manella! That's why I'm here.

Not tubercles on the lungs,--tubercles on the brain! Oh, those tubercles! They could never stand the Plaza!--the gaiety, the brilliancy--the--the all-too dazzling social round!..." he paused, and a gleam of even white teeth under his dark moustache gave the suggestion of a smile--"That's why I stay up here." "You make fun of the Plaza"-- said Manella, biting her lips vexedly--"And of me, too.

I am nothing to you!" "Absolutely nothing, dear! But why should you be any thing ?" A warm flush turned her sunburnt skin to a deeper tinge.
"Men are often fond of women"-- she said.
"Often?
Oh, more than often! Too often! But what does that matter ?" She twisted the ends of her rose-coloured neckerchief nervously with one hand.
"You are a man"-- she replied, curtly--"You should have a woman." He laughed--a deep, mellow, hearty laugh of pleasure.
"Should I?
You really think so?
Wonderful Manella?
Come here!--come quite close to me!" She obeyed, moving with the soft tread of a forest animal, and, face to face with him, looked up.