Love is not blind—Roderic had just now been declaring to himself that he would easily be able to pick Georgia out from among a score of girls whose features were hidden from view—and it was on this very account that he shook from head to foot as though with the palsy.
Dead—that old demon Jealousy once planted in the human breast is hard indeed to slay.
And Roderic again ground his teeth in fury, and followed in the wake of Julio the bolero dancer of San Juan because this veiled senorita who took his arm and clung so confidingly there as they dodged through the crowd had apparently the familiar figure and actions of the girl he loved, the girl he had once jilted on account of this self same Spanish heart smasher—Georgia de Brabant, maid of San Juan!
CHAPTER XVIII.
JULIO DECLARES FOR WAR.
In this fair city of the Conquistadors, where Ponce de Leon laid a foundation for the future Spanish colony, there may have been men who for various causes felt the heat of anger surging through their souls on this August night in the year of our Lord 1898; but it is exceedingly problematical whether one among them experienced such a terrible volcano raging in their heart as did Roderic Owen when the first suspicion burst upon him that Julio's companion was the beautiful girl who had after estrangement again promised to be his honored wife.
The shock almost took his breath away, it was so keen, so cruel, and found him so unprepared.
Then came a revulsion of feeling—it could not be so—Georgia was true, she was loving and faithful—this was only a wretched coincidence—surely there were women in San Juan who possessed figures on the same order as hers, and who even made those familiar little gestures—women were pretty much alike with regard to such things, just as a dozen cats may all make the same graceful leaps, together with the peculiar little motions so characteristic the world over.
Still he followed Julio—for the life of him he could not help that, no matter how thoroughly convinced he might be that it was no affair of his—there was a terrible fascination in the game, as though he were playing with dynamite.