"It was finished yesterday. This is the first time I have been out. Oh, it is delightful. The music-the people!"
"And I can come to see you now?"
"Very well do you know that you cannot. Have you not learned our customs?" Then, with an abrupt and icy change of tone: "I forget. Of course you are familiar with those customs, since you have become the wooer of Miss Torres."
"Oh, Lord! Where did you hear about that?"
"So! It is true. You are fickle, senor-or is it that you prefer dark people?"
"I was looking for you. I thought it was you behind those curtains all the time." He began a flurried defence of his recent outrageous behavior, to which Miss Garavel endeavored to listen with distant composure. But he was so desperately in earnest, so anxious to make light of the matter, so eager to expose all his folly and have done with it, that he must have been funnier than he knew. In the midst of his narrative the girl's eyes showed an encouraging gleam, and when he described his interview with Torres and Heran their surprise and dramatic indignation, she laughed merrily.
"Oh, it wasn't funny at the time," he hastened to add. "I felt as though I had actually proposed, and might have to pay alimony."
"Poor Maria! It is no light thing to be cast aside by one's lover. She is broken-hearted, and for six months she will do penance."
"This penance thing is a habit with you girls. But I wasn't her lover;
I'm yours."
"Do not be foolish," she exclaimed, sharply, "or I shall be forced to walk with my father."