love and my wife. I never had a true love. I never had a wife. She is also my sister, and I never had a sister, and my daughter, and I never will have a daughter. I hate to leave a thing that is so good. He finished tying his rope-soled shoes.
"I find life very interesting," he said to Maria. She was sitting beside him on the robe, her hands clasped around her ankles. Some one moved the blanket aside from the entrance to the cave and they both saw the light. It was night still and here was no promise of morning except that as he looked up through the pines he saw how low the stars had swung. The morning would be coming fast now in this month.
"Roberto," Maria said.
"Yes, _guapa_."
"In this of today we will be together, will we not"
"After the start, yes."
"Not at the start"
"No. Thou wilt be with the horses."
"I cannot be with thee"
"No. I have work that only I can do and I would worry about thee."
"But you will come fast when it is done"
"Very fast," he said and grinned in the dark. "Come, _guapa_, let us go and eat."
"And thy robe"
"Roll it up, if it pleases thee."
"It pleases me," she said.
"I will help thee."
"Nay. Let me do it alone."
She knelt to spread and roll the robe, then changed her mind and stood up and shook it so it flapped. Then she knelt down again to straighten it and roll it. Robert Jordan picked up the two packs, holding them carefully so that nothing would spill from the slits in them, and walked over through the pines to the cave mouth where the smoky blanket hung. It was ten minutes to three by his watch when he pushed the blanket aside with his elbow and went into the cave.