"A thousand pardons, Señorita!" he exclaimed in Spanish, stopping abruptly and raising his hat.
"I—" He paused as her full gaze met his which to his surprise was almost on a level with his own. What a face! Could his sensations have been analyzed, they might have coincided with those of Padre Antonio's on beholding his protegée when she stepped from the stagecoach on her return from the convent.
The broad sweep of her brow, her penetrating gaze, her straight nose, high cheek bones and delicately molded lips and chin and grace of her supple, sinuous body, together with the picturesqueness of her costume, presented a picture of striking beauty.
"Why," he continued abruptly, "you are the woman that danced at Carlos Moreno's! The Señorita Chiquita about whom the whole town is talking!"
"Ah! you saw me dance, Señor?" she asked, betraying a slight embarrassment.
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world! Such a performance—I—" again he paused, regarding her intently. "Do you know, Señorita, all the while I watched you dance there seemed to be something familiar about you. It seemed as though I had seen you somewhere before."
"Yes?" she queried, her dark eyes glowing and a faint flush mounting to her cheeks.
"Yes," he answered. "Ever since then I have been trying to think where it could have been. Ah!" he exclaimed, stepping backwards and eyeing her critically. "Just turn your head that way again. There, that's it! I knew I had seen you before! Do you remember the night we met a year ago on the trail below La Jara?"
A smile parted her full rose-red lips, displaying her pearly teeth. "I remember it well, Señor," she answered, casting down her eyes for an instant. "I recognized you the instant I saw you."
"Strange," he muttered half to himself. Then, after a rather embarrassing silence, he said: "That was a fine horse you rode. Do you live here at the Posada, Señorita?"