Riego understood the spirit of her proposal better than he did the words of her correct Spanish. His father listened throughout with thoughtful, grave attention.
There were no charges to be made for this teaching? Then what was the señorita to gain for so much effort?
"I?" said the señorita—she was standing now, ready to depart—"I gain a better country! My father is a soldier and serves his country by helping to keep the peace along this troubled border. If I had been a son I might have done as much. But I am only a daughter, Antonio! And yet"—and she put her arm over Riego's shoulders as she spoke—"if I help to make loyal even one of America's adopted sons, am not I, too, serving my country?"
The father's rare smile assented to her offer, even before his lips made the promise.
Riego followed the Beautiful One to the door.
Outside, Alonzo Lorente slouched against a lamp-post. The señorita looked into Lorente's face and recoiled slightly. Riego saw the recoil, and an unnamed fear suddenly laid its hand upon his heart.
*****
Pascual and Riego went to Miss Arden's class—Pascual sullen and uninterested, Riego breathlessly eager. But they had not attended many times—indeed, had just begun to glimpse something of the bigness and goodness of their new country—when the stroke fell that was to change their little world. The good father dropped at his work-bench, speechless and bewildered. The American doctor said he would be able to work again, but that his mind would never be quite the same.
Their wise father thus reduced to childishness, and their mother ignorant of the new conditions and the new tongue, the boys were left to plan for themselves.
Pascual left Miss Arden's class. He explained that he would now have to take charge of his father's shop; but he found time to make many trips across the dark Rio Grande and to talk much with Lorente, who now resumed his old practice of dropping in at the shop to chat. His younger brother, however, continued under the señorita's instruction.