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19 

a barker who wanted me to go on the road with them. 

There was another that evening and Alfred, taking the part of l'infant terrible for the first time in his life, announced roguishly at table, "my mother has a letter from "Liliom")

But I revolted against taking such a precaution about the mail. I said that "Mabel always wants to get people emotionally embroiled and that I had been surprised, first, that she had had me as a friend since I was neither in love nor divorced, nor anything exciting to her----and, secondly, that this being so, she should go to the trouble to make a disagreeable situation over me. 

Dasburg chimed in that, "As I had been saying, everything was very pleasant here, except the relations of people."

I said "Up to new I had been able to keep out of all that, but I had always said and thought of her that she is a horse-killer and works servants to death, especially when she gets hold of one that suits her.----- Mrs. Alfaro is not well and could not put the cleaning through, though she always tries to do all she can and be very nice to me. I could tell that she realized that I had come into disfavor with her mistress and that her position was ticklish.

Bu Mabel is not a sculptor or a painter primarily and has no conception of the necessity of getting settled in time to do some work in the place where you can use your materials, any more than she has any realization of what it is to plan what you can do on a certain amount of money and be limited to that. She feels that she gives one delightful freedom and opportunity, and she does ----- but when it comes to any practical arrangement you must look out for that yourself, and her sudden offers are too liable to change and too incompatible with other working conditions to make it worth while to bank on anything but your own resources and take her hospitality and excursions as something additional that you may or may not be able to enjoy.

That is the way to take her. She can be very good company. I have had the nicest horseback rides with her. She is stimulating when she feels interested. I maintain that she is an artist and has a taste and genius in her collections and arrangements of things that I've not seen in anyone else.------- Her house is beautiful.

"Yes" he said "she has the most beautiful house in New Mexico.-- She is a unique woman."

Then he told me many things about Mabel and Nina Bull Witte getting together on the case of Mrs. Young-Hunter and how Mrs. Young-Hunter was hysterical when she heard that Eve and Jack Young-Hunter were likely to visit Mabel in Taos now.

Dasburg said he had taken Mrs. Young-Hunter's part always and she appealed to him as a lady of very fine breeding. No doubt she was trying to take things calmly according to her reason ----- wish them happy, etc., but in her heart of hearts felt herself the abandoned woman and Mabel her enemy.

I said to Dasburg that I had not only always sympathised with Mary Young-Hunter and considered her worth a thousand such as Eve, but that I had been particularly attracted to her when I was introduced to the Young-Hunters three years ago before their separation when Mabel first made their acquaintance