"I should like to. Arabs are rare on this side of the Atlantic. Where did you get him?"
"He was a present from Count Don Louis de Ortega, of the City of Mexico."
"Count Louis de Ortega?"
"Yes. He is the most charming old gentleman I know. He is Padre Antonio's great friend."
"Ah!" ejaculated the Captain as though relieved.
"I once spent a summer traveling in Europe with the Ortega family. But here is your rose, Captain Forest. I almost believe you forgot it. Horses are so much more interesting than flowers," and handing him the rose, she was back again in the garden before he could thank her.
"Á Dios, Capitan Forest," she continued with the softest accent imaginable, lingering unconsciously on his name as she paused on the other side of the gate. Again the little fan opened, and looking back over it with a bewitching smile and arched eyebrows and her head held coquettishly on one side, she said as if to herself: "I wonder how long he will keep it?"
His heart gave a great throb as he gazed upon that subtle, bewitching vision before him, "Forever, Señorita!" he was about to reply, but she was gone.
It might be argued that a woman of Chiquita's metal would not have shown her hand thus lightly. Let his infernal beast bolt and trample the whole town in the dust and himself in the bargain. If he wanted the rose, let him come and get it; not a step would she move! Possibly, but let it not be forgotten that she was in love—desperately in love; that the time for quibbling had passed, that another woman equally fair would have unhesitatingly waded through a river to deliver that rose to the Captain had he asked for it. Destiny had placed Captain Forest in the saddle, just as it had decreed that Don Felipe Ramirez should pass the remainder of his days pursuing an illusive vision. If nature and convention now swarmed at the Captain's saddle-bow, surely it was no fault of his. Had he not burnt his last bridge, snapped his fingers in the face of the world, and turned his back upon it and ridden forth in search of the lost kingdom of Earth?