"Take care, Luis, or you will hurt me!"
He was dumb with astonishment for some minutes.
"But how did you get here?" he said at last.
"By the front staircase. I popped on this black cap and ran down."
Then, seeing that he looked cross and disgusted at a joke in such bad taste, she stood on tiptoe, put her arms round his neck, and after pressing a long and passionate kiss upon his lips, she said, in a coaxing tone:
"Now I know that you are not a coward, but I wanted to prove it."
CHAPTER V
THE JOKES OF PACO GOMEZ
In spite of all the efforts of Paco Gomez, Garnet could not be made to believe that he was acting in good faith. His jocose nature and the practical jokes he had been known to perpetrate had made an unfavourable impression on the Indian. It was in vain that he put on a grave and circumspect manner and held long conversations on the rise and fall of stocks, besides praising his house above all modern buildings, and giving him valuable hints in the game of chapo, the dandy of Lancia saw that there was no dissipating the look of distrust in the old bear's bloodshot eyes. In this dilemma he appealed to Manuel Antonio for help, for he had such a delightful joke in his head that any assistance seemed better than giving it up.
"Don't be so foolish, Santos," said the Chatterbox to him one evening, as he was walking through the Bombé with Garnet. "You see that as you have passed the half of your life behind a counter you don't understand these Lancians. I won't say Fernanda is deeply in love with you, but she is going the way to be so. I tell you, and I say the same everywhere, for I have remarked it for some time. Women are capricious and incomprehensible; they reject a thing one day, and want it the next, when they are then disposed to stretch a point to get it. Fernanda began by snubbing you——"