learly the face of the one
confronting her.

"Do you expect to frighten me?" she asked, coldly, her earlier anger
strangely changing to indifference. "It is you who wastes time,
senorita, for I care little for your knife. Only it would be an
extremely foolish thing for you to do, as I have not come between you
and your lover."

The impulsive Mexican dancer laughed, but with no tone of joy
perceptible.

"My lofer! Mother of God! sometime I think I hate, not lofe. He vas
like all you Americanos, cold as de ice. He play vis Mercedes, and
hurt--gracious, how he hurt! But I must be told. Vat vas he to you?
Answer me dat."

Beth Norvell's eyes softened in sudden pity. The unconscious appeal
within that broken voice, which had lost all semblance of threat,
seemed to reveal instantly the whole sad story, and her heart gave
immediate response. She reached out, touching gently the hand in which
she saw the gleam of the knife-blade. There was no fear in her now,
nothing but an infinite womanly sympathy.

"He is nothing to me," she said, earnestly, "absolutely nothing. I
despise him--that is all. He is unworthy the thought of any woman."

The slender figure of the Mexican swayed as though stricken by a blow,
the fierce, tigerish passion dying out of her face, her free hand
seeking her throat as though choking.

"Nothing?" she gasped, incredulously. "_Sapristi_, I think you lie,
senorita. Nothing? Vy you go to him in secret? Vy you stay and talk
so long? I not understand."

"He sent for me; he wished me to aid him in a business matter."

The other stared incredulous, her form growing rigid with gathering
suspicion that this fair American was only endeavoring to make her a
fool through the use of soft speech. The white teeth gleamed again
maliciously.

"You speak false to Mercedes," she cried hotly, her voice trembling.
"Vy he send for you, senorita? You know him?"

There was a bare instant of seeming hesitation, then the quiet, better
controlled voice answered soberly:

"Yes, in the East, three years ago."

Like a flash of powder, the girl of the hot-blooded South burst into
fresh flame of passion, her foot stamping the floor, her black eyes
glowing with unrestrained anger.

"_Dios de Dios_! Eet ees as I thought. He lofe you, not Mercedes. Vy
I not kill you?--hey?"

Miss Norvell met her fiercely threatening look, her single step of
advance, without tremor or lowering of the eyes. She even