“Here y’ are, Conchita!” “You know me, ’Chita.” “Put ’er here, little gal!” The men bid openly for the dancer’s favor, making haste to clear their tables as an inducement for her to notice them.
She sprang from Jake’s table to another, across the aisle, and repeated her graceful, agile performance, weaving in and out among the dishes, kissing her fingers and smiling. Thus she wandered from table to table, picking her favorites and taking toll of each, going wilfully, it seemed, from silver lure held plainly in sight, to tables where much less was offered.
In and out she flashed, now here, now there, until it became apparent to all that she was working, step by step, toward the one table whose occupant had extended no invitation.
This one was in a corner of the room, and at it sat a young man who was to all appearances neither a prospector nor a cowboy, though he wore a certain indefinable air of the plain. It showed in the bronze of his face, where it was not covered by a crisp brown beard, of a cut not worn by the usual desert-dweller; in his big, strong, tanned hands, that were supple and deft, despite the marks of hard work upon them, and in the steady, farseeing gaze of his brown eyes.
The little dancer was close to the stranger’s table now, and bending low to avoid a hanging lamp, she sprang upon it, and calling something to the guitar-player, set her feet a-twinkle through a bewildering maze of perfectly calculated steps.
She glided about the edge of her tiny stage; she blew lightly across it; she whirled madly in the centre of it. Everyone in the room gazed, spell-bound, realizing that their pet dancer was outdoing herself on this occasion.
Through it all the girl’s eyes never left the face that was upturned to her gaze, the brown eyes regarding her with a sort of consideration that no others in the room had shown. Admiration, challenge, desire, those other eyes had betrayed, but these were different. Their quiet questioning held no reproach; they were full of friendliness, and of interest, and the coin that was presently laid upon her out-thrust toe was cheerfully, even gaily proffered, but the girl suddenly felt that both the interest and the gaiety were different from her own.
She tossed the silver dollar in air and caught it, with a nod of thanks. Then she sprang to the floor and ran up the aisle to where the blind Mexican still strummed his guitar strings.
“Este bestante!” she cried, pouring her earnings into his deep-crowned hat. “No mas.”
She kissed her fingers gaily to the applauding men and turned toward the door. Only Kate Hallard’s keen eyes noted, without seeming to see, that she had knotted one silver coin into a corner of her kerchief, and slipped it into her bosom.