For a moment Alaire and her companion rode in silence, but the teniente was not content with this praise of his leader.

“And yet General Longorio has another side to his character,” he continued.  “He can be as mild as the shyest senorita, and he possesses the most beautiful sentiments.  Women are mad over him.  But he is hard to please—­strangely so.  Truly, the lady who captivates his fancy may count herself fortunate.”  The old soldier turned in his saddle and, with a grace surprising in one of his rough appearance, removed his hat and swept Alaire a bow the unmistakable meaning of which caused her to start and to stammer something unintelligible.

Alaire was angry at the fellow’s presumption, and vexed with herself for showing that she understood his insinuation.  She spurred her horse into a gallop, leaving him to follow as he could.

It was absurd to take the man’s word seriously; indeed, he probably believed he had paid her a compliment.  Alaire assured herself that Longorio’s attentions were inspired merely by a temporary extravagance of admiration, characteristic of his nationality.  Doubtless he had forgotten all about her by this time.  That, too, was characteristic of Latin men.  Nevertheless, the possibility that she had perhaps stirred him more deeply than she believed was disturbing—­one might easily learn to fear Longorio.  As a suitor he would be quite as embarrassing, quite as--dangerous as an enemy, if all reports were true.

Alaire tried to banish such ideas, but even in her own room she was not permitted entirely to forget, for Dolores echoed the teniente’s sentiments.

In marked contrast to Jose Sanchez’s high and confident spirits was the housekeeper’s conviction of dire calamity.  In the presence of these armed strangers she saw nothing but a menace, and considered herself and her mistress no more nor less than prisoners destined for a fate as horrible as that of the two beautiful sisters of whom she never tired of speaking.  Longorio was a blood-thirsty beast, and he was saving them as prey for his first leisure moment—­that was Dolores’s belief.  Abandoning all hope of ever seeing Las Palmas again, she gave herself up to thoughts of God and melancholy praises of her husband’s virtues.

In spite of all this, however, Alaire welcomed the change in her daily life.  Everything about La Feria was restfully un-American, from the house itself, with its bare walls and floors, its brilliantly flowering patio, and its primitive kitchen arrangements, to the black-shawled, barefooted Indian women and their naked children rolling in the dust.  Even the timberless mountains that rose sheer from the westward plain into a tumbling purple-shadowed rampart were Mexican.  La Feria was several miles from the railroad; therefore it could not have been more foreign had it lain in the very heart of Mexico rather than near the northern boundary.