The party about the supper table in the evening was very gay.  The long room was bare, but heavy silver was beyond the glass doors of the cupboard; a servant stood behind each chair; the wines were as fine as any in America, and the favourite dishes of the Americans had been prepared.  Even Brotherton, although more nervous than was usual with him, caught the contagion of the hour and touched his glass more than once to that of the woman whose overwhelming personality had more than half captured a most indifferent heart.

After supper they sat on the corridor, and Benicia sang her mocking love-songs and danced El Son to the tinkling of her own guitar.

“Is she not a light-hearted child?” asked her mother.  “But she has her serious moments, my friend.  We have been like the sisters.  Every path of the pine woods we walk together, arm in arm.  We ride miles on the beach and sit down on the rocks for hours and try to think what the seals say one to the other.  Before you come I have friends, but no other companion; but it is good for me you come, for she think only of flirting since the Americans take Monterey.  Mira!  Look at her flash the eyes at Senor Russell.  It is well he has the light heart like herself.”

Brotherton made no reply.

“Give to me the guitar,” she continued.

Benicia handed her the instrument and Dona Eustaquia swept the chords absently for a moment then sang the song of the troubadour.  Her rich voice was like the rush of the wind through the pines after the light trilling of a bird, and even Russell sat enraptured.  As she sang the colour came into her face, alight with the fire of youth.  Her low notes were voluptuous, her high notes rang with piercing sadness.  As she finished, a storm of applause came from Alvarado Street, which pulsed with life but a few yards below them.

“No American woman ever sang like that,” said Brotherton.  He rose and walked to the end of the corridor.  “But it is a part of Monterey.”

“Most enchanting of mothers-in-law,” said Russell, “you have made it doubly hard for us to leave you; but it grows late and my wife and I must go.  Good night,” and he raised her hand to his lips.

“Good night, my son.”

“Mamacita, good night,” and Benicia, who had fluttered into the house and found a reboso, kissed her mother, waved her hand to Brotherton, and stepped from the corridor to the street.

“Come here, senorita!” cried her mother.  “No walk to-night, for I have not the wish to walk myself.”

“But I go with my husband, mamma.”

“Oh, no more of that joke without sense!  Senor Russell, go home, that she have reason for one moment.”

“But, dear Dona Eustaquia, won’t you understand that we are really married?”

Dona Eustaquia’s patience was at an end.  She turned to Brotherton and addressed a remark to him.  Russell and Benicia conferred a moment, then the young man walked rapidly down the street.