“Not a young lady of family!” said Pachuca, decidedly.
“Well, of course, in America we don’t think a lot about family, though it’s nice to have it if you can. We think more of education and getting on in the world. Señor, I wish you would get down and look at that engine; there’s something awfully wrong with it.”
Polly spoke suddenly for Juan Pachuca was leaning very close to her.
“Your young ladies are charming,” he said, softly. “I had always heard it and now I know it is true.” His black eyes were dancing; it would have taken some guessing to know whether with excitement or laughter or both. “Do they ever forget themselves so far as to allow themselves a love affair on a silver night when——”
“No, they do not,” said Polly, half severely and half amused. It was difficult to take Juan Pachuca’s rudeness seriously and yet—oh, why had she come?
“Not a desperate, hot-headed love affair such as pleases the young ladies of my country,” he pursued, seizing the hand so near him. “But one of those—what do you call them in your tongue—flirtations?”
He was laughing but there was a smoldering fire back of the laughter, and the grasp of his hand was strong.
“Señor, now please—remember that I didn’t come with you because I wanted to, but because I had to! Please!” For Pachuca’s arm had slid itself deftly around her and was drawing her toward him, gently, but with an exceeding firmness, while the dancing dark eyes continued to laugh into hers. “There, see what you’ve done!”
The big car had given a most unwieldy lurch, wedged a tire in a rut, bounced a couple of times, and stopped—providentially—on the edge of the deep gully that fringed the road.
“It is nothing,” declared the young man, a bit stunned by the suddenness of the affair. The car, however, refusing to back, gave him the lie. Polly tore herself from his detaining arm and was out in the road.