Castleton gave a long, low whistle. “Turner gets more jealous with every flirtation Lena has, and this whim of hers may prove serious. Conrad is the best superintendent this ranch ever had, and we want to keep him. But if Turner gets jealous he’ll have to go—and mighty quick, too. And if he doesn’t promptly succumb to Lena’s fascinations—well, she’s just vain enough to carry some story about him to Turner, so that we’d have to let him out for the sake of peace. We can’t afford to lose Conrad, Fanny. I’ll propose to Turner that we cut our stay short and go the day after the Fourth. We’ll have to be here for the barbecue, of course.”
“Really, Ned, that’s just like a man! Don’t you know Lena can’t be managed that way? She’d suspect at once that I was at the bottom of it and wanted to get her away from here, and then nothing could induce her to go. And you know, Ned, she always winds Turner around her finger as if he were a piece of silk. I can’t understand why American wives take so much pleasure in managing their husbands; we Mexican women don’t care to do that sort of thing.” It was a prim little figure that pronounced the last sentence—save for the coquettish turn of the head and a melting glance of dark eyes that flashed for a moment upon her husband.
He bent toward her a lover’s face. “But you know how to manage just the same, Francisquita, mi corazon. Can’t you think of some way to head Lena off and get her away before she does any mischief?”
Francisquita turned a contemplative eye upon the forest of crimson-flowered cactus through which they were riding. “Well, I don’t know that I can do anything—still, Lena’s methods are always so—broad! I suppose I might try, if you’d like me to. It might have some effect if I stepped in right away—you wouldn’t mind it, would you, Ned?—and did a little flirting with Mr. Conrad on my own account; not very much, you know; but I could manage to keep him busy about things—oh, you understand!—just make it pleasant for him to be with me. Really, Ned, Lena hasn’t much chance if I start even with her; we’ve tried it before—you remember—I told you all about it at the time—and I think she’ll quit right away and want to go home, or somewhere, as soon as she sees what I’m doing.”
Castleton laughed aloud. “And poor Conrad! What’s to become of him in the midst of all these sighs and glances?”
She threw him a smiling glance, and broke into a little, low laugh. “Oh, he won’t mind! He’s no silly! And he doesn’t care anything about the ladies, anyway.”
“But suppose, Fanny,” her husband teased, “that he should prefer Lena’s methods after all, and cast himself at her feet instead of yours?”
She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him with a smile trembling at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, in that case he would quite deserve to lose his position.”
“But what about me? Should I deserve to lose him?”