“I’ve heard,” he said at last, looking at her with the hard glint in his eyes that thrilled her pleasurably, “that all women are either angels or devils.  I believe you’re both, Senorita!”

Teresita laughed and pouted her lips at him.  “Such injustice!  Am I then to be blamed because Jose has a bad temper and speech hotter than the enchilladas of Margarita?  I could love him for his rages!  When the Blessed Mary sends me a lover—­” She looked over her shoulder and sighed romantically, hiding the laughter in her eyes and the telltale twist of her lips as best she could, with lashes downcast and face averted.

Even a kitten the size of your two fists knows how to paw a mouse, even though it lacks the appetite for devouring it after the torture.  One cannot logically blame Teresita.  She merely used the weapons which nature put into her pink palms.

CHAPTER XII

POTENTIAL MOODS

So engrossed was the senorita in her truly feminine game of cat-and-mouse that she quite forgot her worry over Mrs. Jerry until she was in her own room and smiling impishly at herself in the mirror, while she brushed the wind-tangles from her hair and planned fresh torment for the Senor Jack.  The senorita liked to see his eyes darken and then light with the flames that thrilled her; and it was exceedingly pleasant to know that she could produce that effect almost whenever she chose.  Also, her lips would curve of themselves whenever she thought of Jose’s rage and subsequent bafflement when she rode off with Senor Jack; and of Senor Jack’s black looks when she praised Jose afterwards.  Truly they hated each other very much—­those two caballeros!  She was woman enough to know the reason why, and to find a great deal of pleasure in the knowledge.

Still smiling, she lifted a heavy lock of hair to the light and speculated upon the mystery of coloring.  Black it was, except when the sun lighted it and brought a sheen that was almost blue; and Senor Jack’s was neither red, as was the hair of the big Senor Simpson, nor brown nor gold, but a tantalizing mixture of all; especially where it waved it had many different shades, just as the light gold and the dark of the pretty senora’s—­It was then that remembrance came to the senorita and made her glance a self-accusing one, when she looked at her reflected face.

“Selfish, thoughtless one that thou art to forget that sweet senora!” she cried.  And for punishment she pulled the lock of hair so that it hurt—­a little.  “I shall ask Senor Hunter if he will not send the carriage for her—­and perhaps I shall go with him to bring her; though truly she will never leave the big hombre who speaks so many words over such slight matters.  I am glad I did not yet carry Chico to live there in that small camp.  Till the house is finished, he shall stay with me.  Truly the storm would kill him if he were there.  But perhaps the storm will not be so great, after