So others of his sex have decided in times past, and mayhap paid the penalty of their folly.
As the secret agent was cruising around that side of the plaza where the band had taken up its quarters, while making a last selection, he received a shock without the least warning by suddenly coming face to face with a dashing looking Spaniard whose gay dress proclaimed him some public performer.
Roderic gritted his teeth at sight of his yellow skinned adversary of the past, for this was no other than Julio, the handsome dancer of the bolero, a man whose life had been one long succession of conquests in the arena of Love, and over whom half the town had at times gone wild.
He had gitano or gypsy blood in his veins, through his mother, which doubtless accounted in a measure for the diablerie of his appearance, and his success among the fair sex, for there is to many women a fascination in anything bordering upon the tempestuous, the wild and eerie.
It was only natural that Roderic, coming thus upon the man he had hated so bitterly in the past, should grind his teeth and feel a mad desire to plant his fist square between those black dare devil eyes that had wrought such accursed mischief for years back.
Then he remembered that it was all a mistake—that he had no valid reason for assaulting the idol of San Juan save in the capacity of a general defender of the weaker sex, a modern Don Quixote, and that would hardly be politic.
Drawn by an attraction he could never explain, he sauntered after the bolero dancer, who had evidently come out of some casino near by, after his performance was done, in order to enjoy the music of the military band—come out without changing his garments, which gave him the picturesque swagger so admired among those of his blood; and the red silk sash that was knotted at his left hip, the ends trailing almost to the knee, did not Roderic remember it well, and had he not once vowed to some day use the same in strangling the gipsy dancer with the devilish handsome face?
Pshaw! that was long ago, when he was a poor fool, whom love had made insane.
Now he had learned his lesson well, and never again would he allow such miserable suspicions to find lodgment in his breast.