"Spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "It is unkind to take a man of English blood from his wine."
"Señorita," I answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the country. I do not wonder. Our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end. There is no longer need for such slight service as I was able to render—"
"Service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip.
Though cut to the quick, I could not give over.
"Alisanda," I said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days since we met on the Monongahela?"
She raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose strand of hair down her cheek.
"Santisima Virgen!" she murmured, with fine-drawn irony. "It has ever been a marvel to me—so chance a meeting."
"Chance, indeed!" I replied. "Chance that the utmost of my effort could not trace the road by which you left Washington; chance that Colonel Burr gave me the clew for which I sought; chance that of the nine horses I rode to a stand between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, none failed me in my need."
She gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "Madre de los Dolores! What a pity! A little time, and the gulf will roll between."
"I will cross that gulf!"