"I still have the rose which fell to me from the sky one moonlit night a month ago."
"Does it keep so long?" mischievously.
"It is pressed in a book of poems. Each couplet of book-leaves holds a petal. The odor of the petals speaks to me the same thought which is the subject of these poems. Shall I tell you what it is, Señorita Doña?"
"Hush! the music ceases. Lead me to a resting place."
There was to be no resting for Señorita Mendoza. Importunate youths claimed dance after dance.
The elders, men and women, were scattered around in groups, some looking at the dancing, others conversing, a few playing cards.
Señor Valentino, owing to her recent bereavement, did not dance. She seated herself on a rustic bench beneath a widespread sycamore, where she was soon the center of an interested coterie. The lady so recently from Madrid retailed to Spanish-born gentry the news of the distant imperial city.
After a while Captain Morando came up. Soon the two were in animated conversation.
"Ah! Captain, not on the floor! Foot-weary so soon?" spoke a dueña who now joined them.
"No, señora, not foot-weary. I forego for a time the pleasures of the dance that I may listen to the words of our beautiful visitor here."