"May your horse have speed and your sword-arm strength!" Don Diego said, and got into his carriage.
Two magnificent horses were hitched to the carriage, and a native coachman in rich livery drove them. Don Diego stretched back on the cushions and half closed his eyes as the carriage started. The driver went across the plaza and turned into the highway, and started toward the hacienda of Don Carlos Pulido.
Sitting on his veranda, Don Carlos saw the gorgeous carriage approaching, and growled low down in his throat, and then got up and hurried into the house, to face his wife and daughter.
"Señorita, Don Diego comes," he said. "I have spoken words regarding the young man, and I trust that you have given heed to them as a dutiful daughter should."
Then he turned and went out to the veranda again, and the señorita rushed into her room and threw herself upon a couch to weep. The saints knew she wished that she could feel some love for Don Diego and take him for a husband, for it would help her father's fortunes, yet she felt that she could not.
Why did not the man act the caballero? Why did he not exhibit a certain measure of common sense? Why did he not show that he was a young man bursting with health, instead of acting like an aged don with one foot in the grave?
Don Diego got from the carriage and waved to the driver to continue to the stable-yard. He greeted Don Carlos languidly, and Don Carlos was surprised to note that Don Diego had a guitar beneath one arm. He put the guitar down on the floor, removed his sombrero, and sighed.
"I have been out to see my father," he said.
"Ha! Don Alejandro is well, I hope?"
"He is in excellent health, as usual. He has instructed me to persist in my suit for the Señorita Lolita's hand. If I do not win me a wife within a certain time, he says, he will give his fortune to the Franciscans when he passes away."