The two discomfited combatants slouched off unwillingly enough, but the slender white fingers of the Mexican remained clasping the speaker’s arm, her upturned face filled with undisguised enthusiasm.  Brown, after pretending to watch the fighters disappear, glanced uneasily down into her wondrous dark eyes, shuffling his feet awkwardly, his appearance that of a bashful boy.  Mercedes laughed out of the depths of a heart apparently untroubled.

“My, but eet vas so ver’ big, senor.  See!  I cannot make de fingers to go round—­no, no.  I nevah see such arm—­nevah.  But you no care?  You vas dat great big all over, hey? Sapristi! who de woman help like such a big Americano?”

“B-but that ain’t it, M-M-M-Mercedes,” blurted out the perturbed giant, in desperation.  “I-I want yer t-t-ter love me.”

“No comprende, senor.”

“O-oh, yes yer do.  L-Lord! didn’t I t-tell it all ter yer s-s-straight ’nough last n-night?  Maybe I ain’t m-much on ther t-talk, but I r-reckon I sh-sh-shot that all right.  C-can’t yer make over th-that like inter l-love somehow?”

She released her clasp upon his arm, her eyes drooping behind their long lashes, the merry laughter fading from her lips.

“Dat vas not von bit nice of you, senor.  Vy you ever keep bodder me so, ven I good to you?  No, I tol’ you not ask me dat so quick soon again.  Did I not do dis?  I tol’ you den I know not; I meet you only de twice—­how I lofe ven I meet you only de twice?”

“You ‘ve m-m-met me as often a-as I h-h-have you,” he interrupted, “an’ I kn-know I l-love you all right.”

“Oh, dat vas diff’rent, ver’ different,” and she tripped back from him, with a coquettish toss of the black head.  “Vy not? of course.  I vas Mercedes—­si; vas dat not enough?  All de caballeros say dat to me; dey say me ver’ pretty girl.  You tink dat too, senor?”

The perplexed Brown, fully conscious that his great strength was useless here, looked an answer, although his lips merely sputtered in vain attempt at speech.

“So; I read dat in de eyes.  Den of course you lofe me.  It vas de nature.  But vis me it vas not so easy; no, not near so easy.  I tink maybe you ver’ nice man,” she tipped it off upon her finger ends half playfully, constantly flashing her eyes up into his puzzled face.  “I tink you ver’ good man; I tink you ver’ strong man; I tink maybe you be ver’ nice to Mercedes.  ’T is for all dose tings dat I like you, senor, like you ver’ mooch; but lofe, dat means more as like, an’ I know not for sure.  Maybe so, maybe not so; how I tell yet for true?  I tink de best ting be I not say eet, but just tink ’bout eet; just keep eet in mine own heart till some odder time ven I sure know.  Vas eet not so?”

Brown set his teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner.  To his slower mentality she was like a humming-bird darting about from flower to flower, yet ever evading him.