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and Julie thought he intended to dance with her right here in the street.  She glanced quickly to see if anyone in her own house or those nearby might be watching, but all the windows were curtained against the heat.
    When Hans planted a wet kiss on her cheek, Julie resisted the urge to wipe it off, not with her hand but with a handkerchief or the corner of her apron.
    "Now I am happy," he sang, reluctantly releasing her hands.  "You talk to your papa, and next Sunday, when I come for dinner, we will have it all decided.  Good-bye, Julie!"
    He looked as though he might give her another kiss, but he only smiled with a bright blush on his cheeks.  Twice he turned as he walked in the direction of the hotel and waved to her, and Julie forced herself to wave back the second time, but with little enthusiasm.
    She passed through the open gate and walked up the steps to the porch, never realizing she had wiped her hands vigorously on her skirt before Hans was even out of sight.  Nor did she see Del Morgan walk through the cemetery gate and shut it quietly behind him.
    He squinted in the sudden brightness and quickly clapped his beaten hat to his head.  His knee hurt from a small stone that had somehow gotten under it while he was visiting the graveyard, and he rubbed the sore spot with a relatively clean hand.  Other aches were not so easily disposed of, like the one that stung his eyes and another that tightened in his chest.  Much as he disliked sitting home with no other companion than a full bottle of cheap whisky, he had no choice.  The Castle was closed on Sunday, and none of his drinking cronies allowed him in their homes.
    He watched the girl, noted the way she rubbed her hands against her skirt as though to rid them of something unpleasant or dirty.  Then he let his gaze follow the blond, heavily built farmer who had disturbed the cemetery's solitude with his outburst.  Morgan shook his head.  Hans passed the hotel and walked into the narrow alley between the Olympia House and the boardwalked shops of Plato, and if Julie Hollstrom didn't know where her future husband was headed, Del Morgan did.

Chapter Three
     
    Julie hefted the big wicker laundry basket to her hip and trudged toward the house.  Her spectacles slipped; she pushed them back where they belonged and sighed with Monday morning weariness.
    But the morning was almost over.  The kitchen smelled of fresh bread, frying sausages, and potato pancakes.  Julie dropped the basket onto the table and hurried to check her father's lunch.  The sausage had just browned and the potato pancakes, set over to the side of the stove, were barely golden on the underside.  It hadn't been easy to do the laundry, bake bread, and wait on Mama, but Julie had accomplished it all and not so much as burned her father's lunch.
    She fixed the usual tray with silverware wrapped in a napkin, coffee cup, and a small pot of freshly brewed coffee. She wondered how he could drink the stuff on a day like this. Already she had downed four or five glasses of water and still felt thirsty.
    As soon as she had delivered Wilhelm's meal, she could come home to her own lunch.  Katharine had breakfasted late and was back asleep, and Willy had gone fishing with some of his friends.  Julie dared to hope she might sit down and eat her meal undisturbed.  If the heat left her any appetite.
    Not that there wouldn't be plenty of work waiting for her after lunch.  Her bed and Willy's needed to be made with these clean sheets, and she hadn't even started the dusting, a daily ritual in this land of arid winds and clouds of fine grit.  Of course she'd have dishes to wash and supper to cook.  If Willy brought home a mess of fish, she'd scale and gut them before she fried them nice and crisp for tonight's meal, but she wasn't sure the luxury of fresh fish was worth the gruesome task of preparing them.
    It would be much better if he came home empty-handed. Then there'd be no gory dressing of the