"Not if the court knows itself. You say she's young. A month's wait won't hurt her any. I want to look into it. Maybe you're offering me too much. A fifth of a cent an acre is a mighty high price for land. I don't want any fairest daughter of Spain to rob herself for me, you know," he grinned.
"I exceed my instructions. I offer two thousand, Mr. Gordon."
"If you said two hundred thousand, I'd still say no till I had looked it up. I'm not doing business to-day at any price, thank you."
"You are perhaps of an impression that this land is valuable. On the contrary, I offer an assurance. And our need of your shadowy claim——"
"I ain't burdened with impressions, except one, that I don't care to dispose of my ghost-title. We'll talk business a month from to-day, if you like. No sooner. Have a smoke, Don Manuel?"
Pesquiera declined the proffered cigar with an impatient gesture. He rose, reclaimed his hat and cane, and clicked his heels together in a stiff bow.
He was a slight, dark, graceful man, with small, neat hands and feet, trimly gloved and shod. He had a small black mustache pointing upward in parallels to his smooth, olive cheeks. The effect was almost foppish, but the fire in the snapping eyes contradicted any suggestion of effeminacy. His gaze yielded nothing even to the searching one of Gordon.
"It is, then, war between us, Señor Gordon?" he asked haughtily.
Dick laughed.
"Sho! It's just business. Maybe I'll take your offer. Maybe I won't. I might want to run down and look at the no-'count land," he said with a laugh.