“You know something of the desert,” Grant conceded.
“Something! Señor”—the alien word slipped from her in her flurry of devotion—“señor, my home is there and my father’s home has been there more than a hundred and fifty years. I have been away from it in the slavery of the cities—two years at music in New Orleans and Baltimore. Now I return. To-morrow morning at Arizora big Quelele, my father’s Indian servant, meets me to take me a hundred miles—a hundred miles off the railroad and away from the nearest city to my home.”
“But Arizora is where I am bound,” Grant eagerly caught her up. “That’s on the Line, isn’t it? A hundred miles—why, then you must live in Mexico.” She nodded. His curiosity would not down:
“Then you are Mexican?”
An instant her blue eyes sparkled resentment. Grant sensed he had made some blunder, though he could not for the life of him guess how his innocent question could have offended. The girl, on her part, quickly regretted her show of displeasure; one new to the Southwest naturally could not know much about its social distinctions.
“Not Mexican,” she amended gently. “We are Spanish folk living in Mexico. We have always been Spanish since the time one of my ancestors got his grant from the king of Spain. Never Mexican. That sounds like silly boasting to you. When you have lived in this country for a little while you will understand why we have pride in our blood. Just as you have pride, señor, in your American blood when all the cities of your country are choked with mongrels.”
Hoping to hear her name, Grant gave her his own. She repeated it as if to fix it in memory; then she told him hers. Benicia O’Donoju it is written, but in her mouth the two words had a quality like a muted violin note, too fugitive to be imprisoned in letters. She spoke the surname without accent on any syllable—“Odonohoo.” The man grasped at something evanescent in the sound:
“Why, I’d pronounce that ‘O’Donohue.’”
“My great-great-grandfather did.” Once more Grant’s ears drank in that velvety contralto laughter which bubbled to her lips so easily. “You would pronounce his first name ‘Mike,’ and so did he.”
“Then your first name should be Peg or Molly-o,” Grant rallied. She shook her head in gay denial.