Now ensued a strange underhanded drama.  Garcia stayed week after week, riding often to the city on business or pretence of business, but passing most of his time at the hacienda, where he wandered about a great deal in a ghost-like manner, glancing slyly at Clara a hundred times a day without ever looking her in the eyes, and haunting her steps without overtaking or addressing her.  Every time that she returned from a ride he shambled to the door to see if the saddle were empty.  During the night he hearkened in the passages for outcries of sudden illness.  And while he thus watched the girl, he was himself incessantly watched by his nephew.

“She gets no worse,” the old man at last complained to the younger one.  “I think she is growing fat.”

“It is one of the symptoms,” replied Coronado.  “By the way, there is one thing which we ought to consider.  If she gives you half of this estate—?”

“Madre de Dios!  I would take it and go.  But she cannot give until she is of age.  And meantime she may marry.”

He glanced suspiciously at his nephew, but Coronado kept his bland composure, merely saying, “No present danger of that.  She sees no one but us.”

He thought of adding, “Why not marry her yourself, my dear uncle?” But Garcia might retort, “And you?” which would be confusing.

“Suppose she should make a will in your favor?” the nephew preferred to suggest.

“I cannot wait.  I must have money now.  Make a will?  Madre de Dios!  She would outlive me.  Besides, he who makes a will can break a will.”

After a minute of anxious thought, he asked, “How much do you think she will give me?”

“I will ask her.”

“Not her,” returned Garcia petulantly.  “Are you a pig, an ass, a fool?  Ask the old one—­the duenna.  It ought to be a great deal; it ought to be half—­and more.”

To satisfy the old man as well as himself, Coronado sounded Mrs. Stanley as to the proposed division.

“Yes, indeed!” said the lady emphatically.  “Clara must do something for Garcia, who has been such an excellent friend, and who ought to have been named in the will.  But you know she has her duties toward herself as well as toward others.  Now the property is not a million; it may be some day or other, but it isn’t now.  The executors say it might bring three hundred thousand dollars in ready money.”

The executors, by the way, had been sedulously depreciating the value of the estate to Clara, in order to bring down her vast notions of generosity.

“Well,” continued Aunt Maria, “my niece, who is a true woman and magnanimous, wanted to give up half.  But that is too much, Mr. Coronado.  You see money” (here she commenced on something which she had read)—­“money is not the same thing in our hands that it is in yours.  When a man has a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, he puts it into business and doubles it, trebles it, and so on.  But a woman can’t do that; she is trammelled and hampered by the prejudices of this male world; she has to leave her money at small interest.  If it doubles once in her life, she is lucky.  So, you see, one half given to Garcia would be, practically speaking, much more than half,” concluded Aunt Maria, looking triumphantly through her argument at Coronado.