“Gracias, anything but that.” Bowing, he stood aside to permit her to pass. “The half liking that you deal out to Anton, Javier, and other fat-jowled hacendados, your admirers, would never do for me. I prefer your—fear.”
“But I am not afraid of you.” She looked straight in his eyes passing out.
“You will be—some day.”
CHAPTER XIII
Coming out from luncheon—at which Sebastien had presided with a grave courtesy which lifted the inn’s humble fare of eggs, tortillas, and rice to epicurean heights—Seyd and Francesca came face to face with Tomas, her mozo, who had just ridden into the patio. At sight of his mistress the mozo’s teeth flashed in the golden dusk under his sombrero, but he shook his head when she reached for the letter which he took out of his saddle bags.
“It is for the gringo señor. The jefe did not know of your coming.”
It was, of course, from Don Luis. Couched in terms massively dignified as his own reserve, it apologized for the floods as for some personal fault, and finished by placing hacienda San Nicolas at Seyd’s service.
“So you will ride on with us,” Francesca commented upon its content.