This was the first indication I had received of Miss Mannersley’s advances.  I was equally surprised at Enriquez’ refusal.

“Nonsense!” I said bluntly.  “Nothing keeps you from going.”

“My friend,” returned Enriquez, with a sudden lapse into languishment that seemed to make him absolutely infirm, “it is everything that shall restrain me.  I am not strong.  I shall become weak of the knee and tremble under the eye of Mees Boston.  I shall precipitate myself to the geologian by the throat.  Ask me another conundrum that shall be easy.”

He seemed idiotically inflexible, and did not go.  But I did.  I found Miss Mannersley exquisitely dressed and looking singularly animated and pretty.  The lambent glow of her inscrutable eye as she turned toward me might have been flattering but for my uneasiness in regard to Enriquez.  I delivered his excuses as naturally as I could.  She stiffened for an instant, and seemed an inch higher.  “I am so sorry,” she said at last in a level voice.  “I thought he would have been so amusing.  Indeed, I had hoped we might try an old Moorish dance together which I have found and was practicing.”

“He would have been delighted, I know.  It’s a great pity he didn’t come with me,” I said quickly; “but,” I could not help adding, with emphasis on her words, “he is such an ‘extraordinary creature,’ you know.”

“I see nothing extraordinary in his devotion to an aged relative,” returned Miss Mannersley quietly as she turned away, “except that it justifies my respect for his character.”

I do not know why I did not relate this to him.  Possibly I had given up trying to understand them; perhaps I was beginning to have an idea that he could take care of himself.  But I was somewhat surprised a few days later when, after asking me to go with him to a rodeo at his uncle’s he added composedly, “You will meet Mees Boston.”

I stared, and but for his manner would have thought it part of his extravagance.  For the rodeo—­a yearly chase of wild cattle for the purpose of lassoing and branding them—­was a rather brutal affair, and purely a man’s function; it was also a family affair—­a property stock-taking of the great Spanish cattle-owners—­and strangers, particularly Americans, found it difficult to gain access to its mysteries and the fiesta that followed.

“But how did she get an invitation?” I asked.  “You did not dare to ask—­” I began.

“My friend,” said Enriquez, with a singular deliberation, “the great and respectable Boston herself, and her serene, venerable oncle, and other Boston magnificos, have of a truth done me the inexpressible honor to solicit of my degraded, papistical oncle that she shall come—­that she shall of her own superior eye behold the barbaric customs of our race.”