"Nada!" forbade Doña Dolores. "Not so fast, señor. I am the duenna, and I have very sharp eyes. So also have others who are walking in the plaza. You have chanced to find my beads, and are escorting me to the house of Señor Vallois, where your friend, my husband, is to join me at breakfast. Please do not forget that you are escorting me. If you choose to pay compliments to my companion, and I am too deaf to hear anything that is said, who can blame me? Besides, you know I do not understand English."
"Señora, you are an angel!" I exclaimed.
"Santa Maria! but that is the truth," she mocked. "Yet do not tell it to me when she is in hearing."
"Dolores! Is this a time for jests?" murmured Alisanda. The señora fell to counting her beads, with the most pious of expressions. My lady addressed me in English: "Dolores knows all, Juan. But it will be easier for you to talk in English, and she will not have to strain her conscience when she next goes to confession. Juan, it was rash to force this meeting."
"Forgive me, dearest one! But I could wait no longer. The interruption of our last meeting—"
"Santa Virgen! that terrible aide! I was stricken dumb with terror when he lunged at you—from the rear! The coward!"
"You saw it?"
"All! all! Juan, dear friend, you must guard yourself—you must be careful! That savage Andalusian! I heard all you said—how you spared him, that I might escape the scandal of a duel beneath my window. Has he challenged you?"
"Not yet."
"Not yet! But he will—he will! Do not fight him with swords, Juan. You told me once that you were not a swordsman. He is the most expert fencer in all these provinces."