He looked at her sharply, but her eye was roving. He became suspicious. She might be simple, and then again she mightn't. She was worth studying, anyhow.
"I was a cavalryman, with nothing to do but obey orders and, when ordered, fight. I am visiting the American consul here; he was a school-mate of mine."
"Ah! I thought I recognized the horse."
"You know him?"—quickly.
"Oh,"—casually,—"every one hereabouts has seen the consul on his morning rides. He rides like a centaur, they say; but I have never seen a centaur."
The stranger laughed. She was charming.
"He ought to ride well; I taught him." But the gay smile which followed this statement robbed it of its air of conceit. "You see, I have ridden part of my life on the great plains of the West, and have mounted everything from a wild Indian pony to an English thoroughbred. My name is Max Scharfenstein, and I am here as a medical student, though in my own country I have the right to hang out a physician's shingle."
She drew aimless figures in the dust with her riding-crop. There was no sense in her giving any name. Probably they would never meet again. And yet—
"I am Hildegarde von—von Heideloff," giving her mother's name. He was too nice to frighten away.
The hesitance over the "von" did not strike his usually keen ear. He was too intent on noting the variant expressions on her exquisite face. It was a pity she was dark. What a figure, and how proudly the head rested upon the slender but firm white throat! After all, black eyes, such as these were, might easily rival any blue eyes he had ever seen. (Which goes to prove that a man's ideals are not built as solidly as might be.)