Señora Vallejo had turned her back, but the caballero could see that her shoulders were shaking, and not with anger. Señorita Anita was deeply interested in the distant flashing of sun on the water.
“Even such rain as we have had recently could not drown my ardour,” the caballero continued. “Yet it was growing almost unbearable—the storm and the cold and misery. How can I ever find thanks enough to give the angel who fetched me flint and steel under cover of the darkness, when I had about given up hope?”
The girl whirled suddenly, suspiciously, looking not at the caballero, but at her duenna; and Señora Vallejo’s face resembled the sunset.
“Nor is that all,” went on the caballero. “Flint and steel might have given me fire, but naught but an angel could have furnished me, at that moment, with cold meat and wine and other supplies.”
Now Señora Vallejo whirled in her turn, and Señorita Anita turned suddenly to look down the valley again, her face flaming red. A choking sound came from her throat.
“Some fray of San Diego de Alcalá must have been a holy man, since angels make dwelling here,” the man said. “For two visited me last night within the space of half an hour and left material evidences of their visits behind. It is true I had other visitors later, who left me even a teepee, but scarcely would I call them angels, knowing their breed as I do.”
Sombrero in hand, he waited, hoping the girl would speak to him, if even in rebuke. There was silence for a moment, during which the two women did not look at each other, and the neophyte wondered whether he should call for aid.
“Señora Vallejo,” said the girl, presently, “do you not think we should be returning to the guest house? The evening air is cold, and I would not contract a cough, since I must be at my best when Rojerio Rocha comes.”
“It would be the proper thing to do; the orchard is wet.”
“And I always did dislike a croaking frog,” Anita added. “Tell that Indian to throw out the water in his jar. Nobody except a senseless being would draw water from the well now, since the storm has filled it with the surface flood.”