“Señorita Peg—impossible! Benicia is much better. It means ‘Blessed’ in our tongue. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart,’ Señor Hickman; or ‘Blessed are the meek.’ I might be either if I could forget I am an O’Donoju.”
“Benicia.” Grant tried to copy the slurring softness she gave to the word.—“B’nishia: that sounds like little bells. I like it.”
“You are gracious, señor. I thought Americans were too busy with skyscrapers and wheat markets to learn the art of paying compliments gracefully.”
“Compliments are born, not paid,” he joked. Conversation limped no longer. Youth has a way of opening little windows in the souls of two brought together under its wizardry and giving each elusive peeps into secret chambers. It was Benicia who first became conscious of the lateness of the hour and the strain on strict canons of propriety her presence alone with a stranger on the observation platform had entailed. She arose with a little laugh.
“My guardian”—a roguish glance toward the tiny figure of the Spaniard still on the watch beyond the platform’s glass—“I fear he does not approve. And so—adios.” She gave Grant the tips of her fingers and was gone.
He watched her pass where the sentinel was sitting. The little man uncurled himself from his hump-shouldered crouch and scrambled to his feet as if he would speak to her. But Benicia, bowing sweetly, passed on up the aisle and into the alley of rosewood and glass beyond. After a moment’s hesitation the Spaniard came to the screen door giving onto the platform, where Grant now stood alone, and opened it. He scratched a match and put it to his cigarette. Grant saw the flare illumine a cruel hawk’s nose and thin, saturnine lips. The Spaniard inhaled deeply, then let thin streams of smoke seep from his nostrils.
“Señor”—his voice was cold as a lizard’s foot—“perhaps you do not know that Señorita O’Donoju is travelling under my protection.”
Grant took time to tap a cigarette on the heel of his palm and light it before he answered. His eyes were brimming with laughter.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “I congratulate the lady on her protector.” Again blue smoke played over the toy moustache; little eyes were snapping like a badger’s.
“I have the honour to inform you, señor, that your attentions to the lady do her no credit and that they must cease.”