They are worn not by Maurice Gerald, but by Miguel Diaz!
Bright looks become black.
From her firm seat in the saddle she subsides into an attitude of listlessness—despairing rather than indifferent; and the sound that escapes her lips, as for an instant they part over her pearl-like teeth, is less a sigh than an exclamation of chagrin.
There is no sign of fear in the altered attitude—only disappointment, dashed with defiance.
El Coyote speaks first.
“H’la!
S’norita, who’d have expected to find your ladyship in this lonely place—wasting your sweetness on the thorny chapparal?”
“In what way can it concern you, Don Miguel Diaz?”
“Absurd question, S’norita!
You know it can, and does; and the reason why.
You well know how madly I love you.
Fool was I to confess it, and acknowledge myself your slave. ’Twas that that cooled you so quickly.”
“You are mistaken, Senor.
I never told you I loved you.
If I did admire your feats of horsemanship, and said so, you had no right to construe it as you’ve done.
I meant no more than that I admired them—not you. ’Tis three years ago.
I was a girl then, of an age when such things have a fascination for our sex—when we are foolish enough to be caught by personal accomplishments rather than moral attributes.
I am now a woman. All that is changed, as—it ought to be.”
“Carrai! Why did you fill me with false hopes?
On the day of the herradero, when I conquered the fiercest bull and tamed the wildest horse in your father’s herds—a horse not one of his vaqueros dared so much as lay hands upon—on that day you smiled—ay, looked love upon me.
You need not deny it, Dona Isidora!
I had experience, and could read the expression—could tell your thoughts, as they were then.
They are changed, and why?
Because I was conquered by your charms, or rather because I was the silly fool to acknowledge it; and you, like all women, once you had won and knew it, no longer cared for your conquest.
It is true, S’norita; it is true.”
“It is not, Don Miguel Diaz.
I never gave you word or sign to say that I loved, or thought of you otherwise than as an accomplished cavalier.
You appeared so then—perhaps were so.
What are you now?
You know what’s said of you, both here and on the Rio Grande!”
“I scorn to reply to calumny—whether it proceeds from false friends or lying enemies.
I have come here to seek explanations, not to give them.”
“Prom whom?”
“Prom your sweet self, Dona Isidora.”
“You are presumptive, Don Miguel Diaz!
Think, Senor, to whom you are addressing yourself.
Remember, I am the daughter of—”
“One of the proudest Haciendados in Tamaulipas, and niece to one of the proudest in Texas.
I have thought of all that; and thought too that I was once a haciendado myself and am now only a hunter of horses.
Carrambo! what of that?
You’re not the woman to despise a man for the inferiority of his rank.
A poor mustanger stands as good a chance in your eyes as the owner of a hundred herds.
In that respect, I have proof of your generous spirit!”
“What proof?” asked she, in a quick, entreating tone, and for the first time showing signs of uneasiness. “What evidence of the generosity you are so good as to ascribe to me?”
“This pretty epistle I hold in my hand, indited by the Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos, to one who, like myself, is but a dealer in horseflesh.
I need not submit it to very close inspection.
No doubt you can identify it at some distance?”
She could, and did; as was evinced by her starting in the saddle—by her look of angry surprise directed upon Diaz.
“Senor! how came you in possession of this?” she asked, without any attempt to disguise her indignation.
“It matters not.