human
Are you happy, Honor?
gpt
Yes, Cartie. Happier than ever before--and I've been happy all my life.
human
Well, you have a marvelous effect on Jimsy. I don't believe he's taken a drop since you've been here.
gpt
He hasn't touched a drop since he came to Mexico, Carter,--Mr. King told me that, and Jimsy told me himself!
human
Really? He limped over to the table where the smoking things were and the decanter of whiskey and siphon of soda.
gpt
Let me have a look.... He picked up the decanter and held it to the light.
human
The last time I looked at it, it came just to the top of the design here,--and it does yet. Yes, it's just where it was.
gpt
Carter! I call that spying!
human
I call it looking after my friend, he said gently.
gpt
I don't suppose you've let him tell you very much about what happened at college?
human
No, Carter. What's the use of it, now? He wrote it all to me, but the letter must have passed me. It's a closed chapter now.
gpt
I hope to God it will stay closed, he said, haggardly.
human
But I'm afraid, Honor; I'm horribly afraid for you.
gpt
I'm not afraid, Carter,--for myself or for Jimsy. She got up and walked to the window; she was aware that she hated the dimness of the _sala_; she wanted the honest heat of the sun.
human
Look! she said, gladly. Carter limped slowly to join her. Jimsy King was swinging toward them through the brazen three o'clock glare, his Yaqui Juan by his side. They were a sightly and eye-filling pair. They might have been done in bronze for studies of Yesterday and To-day.
gpt
said Honor again.
human
Oh, Carter, do you think any--any horrible dead trait--any clammy dead hand--can reach up out of the grave to pull him down?
gpt
Carter, I don't want to hurt you,--oh, I know I hurt you all the time, in one way, and I can't help that,--I don't want to be unkind, but--are you sure it isn't because you--care--for me that you have this hopeless feeling about Jimsy? She faced him squarely and made him meet her eyes.
human
Carter! Tell me.
gpt
Of course I want you myself, Honor. I want you--horribly, unbearably, but I do honestly feel it's wrong for you to marry Jimsy King.
human
But, Carter--see how nearly his father won out! Every one says that if his mother had lived--And his Uncle Richard! He's absolutely free from it, now. And the very look of Jimsy is enough to show you----
gpt
It comes so suddenly, Honor ... with such frightful unexpectedness. Remember, when we were youngsters, the World's Biggest Snake, 'Samson,'--exhibited in a vacant store on Main Street, and how keen we all were about him?
human
I adored him. He had a head like a nice setter's and he wasn't cold or slimy a bit!
gpt
Remember what the man told us about his hunger? How he'd go three months without anything, and then devour twenty live rabbits and chickens and cats?
human
I know. It was awful.
gpt
But the point was the suddenness. They never knew when the hunger would seize him. The fellow said that it came like a flash. He was gentle as a lamb for weeks on end--and then it came. He'd pounce on the keeper's pet rabbit--his dog--the man himself if he were within reach. He was an utterly changed creature; he was just--an _appetite_. He stood staring somberly at the decanter.
human
That's the way it comes, Honor.