"I turn to you for help, Monsieur Bronco," said the girl, "because you have told me a hundred times that you love me. Love gives. It is not always asking, asking, asking. Now give me your help. I want to get at the truth. I want to clear a good and honest man from a web of lies. Take me to the Canteen with you to-night. They say my Luigi goes there to see Madame la Cantinière. They say he flirts and drinks with her, that he helps her there, and serves behind her bar. They even dare to say that he asks her to marry him...."
"It's true," interrupted the Bucking Bronco.
"Very well--then take me there now. My Luigi has sworn to me a hundred times that he never sets foot in Madame's Canteen, that he would not touch her filthy Algerian wine--my Luigi who drinks only the best Chianti from Home. Take me there and prove your lies. Take me now, and either you and your friends, or else Luigi Rivoli, shall never cross my threshold again." Carmelita's voice was rising, tears were starting to her eyes, and her bosom rose and fell as no man's ever did.
"Easy, honey," said the big American. "Ef yure gwine ter carry on right here, what'll you do in the Canteen when yew see yure Loojey right thar doin' bar-tender fer the woman he's a-doin' his damnedest to marry?"
"Do?" answered Carmelita in a low tense voice. "Do? I would be cold as ice. I would be still and hard as one of the statues in my own Naples. All Hell would be in my breast, but a Hell of frozen fire do you understand, and I would creep away. Like a silent spirit I would creep away--but I would be a spirit of vengeance. To Monsieur Jean Boule would I go and I would say, 'Kill him! Kill him! For the love of God and the Holy Virgin and the Blessed Bambino, kill him--and let me come and stamp upon his face.' That is what I would say, Monsieur Bronco."
The American covered the girl's small brown hand with his huge paw.
"Carmelita, honey," he whispered. "Don't go, little gel--don't go. May I be struck blind and balmy right hyar, right naow, ef I tell you a word of a lie. Every night of his life he's thar, afore he comes down hyar with lies on his lips to yew. Don't go. Take my word fer it, an' John Bull's word, and young Rupert's word. They're White Men, honey, they wouldn't lie ter yew. Believe what we tell yew, and give ole John Bull back his promise, an' let him shoot-up this low-lifer rattlesnake...."
"I will see with my own eyes," said Carmelita--adding with sound feminine logic, "and if he's not there to-night, I'll know that you have all lied to me, and that he never was there--and never, never, never again shall one of you enter my house, or my Legionaries shall nail you by the ears to the wall with their bayonets.... Shame on me, to doubt my Luigi for a moment."
The American gave way.
"Come on then, little gel," he said. "P'raps it's fer the best."