Coronado thought of making interest with the post-commandant to have Thurstane kept a few days in Santa Fe.  But the post-commandant was a grim and taciturn old major, who looked him through and through with a pair of icy gray eyes, and returned brief answers to his musical commonplaces.  Coronado did not see how he could humbug him, and concluded not to try it.  The attempt might excite suspicion; the major might say, “How is this your business?” So, after a little unimportant tattle, Coronado made his best bow to the old fellow, and hurried off to oversee his so-called cousin.

In the evening he brought Garcia to call on the ladies.  Aunt Maria was rather surprised and shocked to see such an excellent man look so much like an infamous scoundrel.  “But good people are always plain,” she reasoned; and so she was as cordial to him as one can be in English to a saint who understands nothing but Spanish.  Garcia, instructed by Coronado, could not bow low enough nor smile greasily enough at Aunt Maria.  His dull commonplaces moreover, were translated by his nephew into flowering compliments for the lady herself, and enthusiastic professions of faith in the superior intelligence and moral worth of all women.  So the two got along famously, although neither ever knew what the other had really said.

When Clara appeared, Garcia bowed humbly without lifting his eyes to her face, and received her kiss without returning it, as one might receive the kiss of a corpse.

“Contemptible coward!” thought Coronado.  Then, turning to Mrs. Stanley, he whispered, “My uncle is almost broken down with this parting.”

“Excellent creature!” murmured Aunt Maria, surveying the old toad with warm sympathy.  “What a pity he has lost one eye!  It quite injures the benevolent expression of his face.”

Although Garcia was very distantly connected with Clara, she gave him the title of uncle.

“How is this, my uncle?” she said, gaily.  “You send your merchandise trains through Bernalillo, and you send me through Santa Anna and Rio Arriba.”

Garcia, cowed and confounded, made no reply that was comprehensible.

“It is a newly discovered route,” put in Coronado, “lately found to be easier and safer than the old one.  Two hundred and fifty years in learning the fact, Mrs. Stanley!  Just as we were two hundred and fifty years without discovering the gold of California.”

“Ah!” said Clara.  Absent since her childhood from New Mexico, she knew little about its geography, and could be easily deceived.

After a while Thurstane entered, out of breath and red with haste.  He had stolen ten minutes from his accounts and stores to bring Miss Van Diemen a piece of information which was to him important and distressing.

“I fear that I shall not be able to go with you,” he said.  “I have received orders to wait for a sergeant and three recruits who have been assigned to my company.  The messenger reports that they are on the march from Fort Bent with an emigrant train, and will not be here for a week.  It annoys me horribly, Miss Van Diemen.  I thought I saw my way clear to be of your party.  I assure you I earnestly desired it.  This route—­I am afraid of it—­I wanted to be with you.”