"I can dance the jota a little," Anita confided to him, "but I should like to learn some other dances. Madre, may I learn? Señor Machorro says he will teach me this dance of Miss Ralston's."
"I think I would begin with something simpler," said Mrs. Beltrán, after a pause. "This seems rather complicated to me."
"I must get castanets and a tambourine," said Anita, turning to Don Manuel. "I shall have to learn first to use the castanets."
"And I shall be the first to teach you, to my great happiness," returned Don Manuel.
This was the beginning of what might be termed the stormy season for Anita. Don Manuel began a series of attentions such as in the old days Anita had dreamed of, but which, strange to say, now failed in their appeal. The night after the Russian tea she was awakened by music under her window. She threw a cloak around her and stole out on the balcony to see a shrouded figure standing there in the garden singing an emotional love song to the strains of a guitar. A serenade! What must one do when one is so complimented? She was uncertain. Must she recognize it or not? There was something sweetly mysterious and romantic in this nocturnal music. In Spain, the land of romance. A cavalier in picturesque cloak singing. It was like a dream, a poem. She thought at first that she would waken her mother, and then the sensation of experiencing this alone appealed to her strongly and she stood in the shadows listening. Presently a window on the floor above was raised and she saw a white flower descend to fall at the feet of the singer. He looked up and she saw that, as she suspected, it was Don Manuel. "It was Miss Ralston, of course," Anita murmured to herself. "Perhaps after all he is serenading her and not me. She danced for him. I think now she danced for him alone, and I believe he taught her that dance, that dance which madre does not wish me to learn. Well, I shall go in, for I don't want to take to myself a serenade which belongs to another." She felt quite put upon. The romance was taken out of it. She no longer thought it romantic, and thought only that she was chilly and that she would be more comfortable in bed. So back she crept and shut her ears to the twanging of the guitar and the manly tones.
IT WAS LIKE A DREAM, A POEM
The next day, however, Don Manuel waylaid her on the stairs. "Was it you, you who gave this?" he asked, drawing from his pocket a white flower, rather the worse for wear.