You may deem the picture overdrawn—perhaps pronounce it unfeminine.
And yet it is a copy from real life—true as I can remember it; and more than once had I the opportunity to fix it in my memory.
The attitude is altered, and with the suddenness of a coup d’éclair; the change being caused by recognition of the horseman who comes galloping into the glade. The shine of the gold-laced vestments had misled her. They are worn not by Maurice Gerald, but by Miguel Diaz!
Bright looks become black. From her firm seat in the saddle she subsides into an attitude of listlessness—despairing rather than indifferent; and the sound that escapes her lips, as for an instant they part over her pearl-like teeth, is less a sigh than an exclamation of chagrin.
There is no sign of fear in the altered attitude—only disappointment, dashed with defiance.
El Coyote speaks first.
“H’la! S’ñorita, who’d have expected to find your ladyship in this lonely place—wasting your sweetness on the thorny chapparal?”
“In what way can it concern you, Don Miguel Diaz?”
“Absurd question, S’ñorita! You know it can, and does; and the reason why. You well know how madly I love you. Fool was I to confess it, and acknowledge myself your slave. ’Twas that that cooled you so quickly.”
“You are mistaken, Señor. I never told you I loved you. If I did admire your feats of horsemanship, and said so, you had no right to construe it as you’ve done. I meant no more than that I admired them—not you. ’Tis three years ago. I was a girl then, of an age when such things have a fascination for our sex—when we are foolish enough to be caught by personal accomplishments rather than moral attributes. I am now a woman. All that is changed, as—it ought to be.”