The señor smiled. "Señora Valentino."
The girl's eyes once more bent in thought. "Why?"
"Again the night in the cave," he laughed. "I am indebted to the padre, and could not have refused his request to help the English captain, of which the señora was well aware. Immediately I divined O'Donnell to be the real cause of Farquharson's predicament, and I knew that he would gladly grant me the request, did I make it, to free the captive. The lady's mind ran the gamut of the cause and effect."
"It is like an endless puzzle, my papa."
"Which the Captain solved of his own accord by taking himself out of his plight, aided by Brown."
They walked a little while in silence. Filipo, the porter, looked in surprise at them from his high seat in the lodge. Usually he was the only person awake on the hacienda at this hour. His little beady eyes followed them up and down, up and down the avenue.
"My daughter," the father finally said, "we have in California, in a small way, an example of the game of statecraft. Europe plays on a larger scale, but it is the same. There, as here, the charm and brain of woman supply the leverage for overturning states."
"I would not have thought Señora Valentino gifted in that way."
"Six months ago the señora and Farquharson were in Mexico City. Don Juan Domingo told me of them. O'Donnell also was there, but under an assumed name. I too was there, though I saw none of the three. The lady's fame had followed her to the capital. Her hand has in no way lost its cunning here. The older men—well, we know how they accepted her wishes a few nights ago; and the young men are at her feet. No wonder."
Carmelita said nothing.