Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain, now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her national colours in the very heavens. Then she heaved a deep sigh.
"You are doubtless a fine horseman?" she cried, clasping her hands—"oh, I adore all horses! I love to see a man ride as a man should!"
The young man coloured. This was, in truth, the most open joint in his armour. Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship. Concha had judged as much from his care of his spurs. And then to be mistaken for an infantry tramper!
"Ah," he said, "if the Señorita could only see my mare La Perla! I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts are for the most part mere garrons of Cataluña or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves."
At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.
"Oh, I wish——" she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.
"If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man, enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!"
As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha's basquiña.
"Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of my country—of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!"
"The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan.