“Tanto tiempo!” She mimicked his accent. “Well, what of it, you ungrateful gringo? Is it such a small matter to you that we haven’t seen one another since this morning?”
Then they both burst out laughing, like two children.
By this time they had reached the hitching post where she had left her horse. Hurriedly she sprang to his back, as though it made her feel uncomfortable and helpless to stand on the ground. Besides, in spite of his six feet and over, this point of vantage made it possible for her to look down at him.
The rope was still wound about his arms and shoulders, but Celinda determined to let her captive go.
“Listen, don Ricardo, I’m going to set you free, but only so you can do a little work!”
With a quick twist she tossed the rope off his shoulders. But as though her presence robbed him of all initiative, the youth remained motionless before her. Majestically she offered him her hand.
“Don’t be ill-bred, Mr. Watson! That is for you to kiss. You seem to be losing all your manners out here in the desert.”
Amused by the girl’s mock gravity, the young engineer bent over her hand. But his air of treating her with the good-natured condescension an older person displays toward a mischievous child, annoyed her.
“One of these days I’m going to get really cross with you, and then you’ll never see me again. You always treat me as though I were a little girl, when I’m not! I’m the first lady of the land, I’m the Princess Flor de Rio Negro!”
But Watson was still laughing at her; and finally the girl laughed too; whereupon, the Princess Flor began exhibiting a serious and maternal interest in her friend’s welfare.