rennahan watched
her closely, remarking upon the variety a man might find in a woman if
he chose to look for it.

The boy assured Magdalena that the tarantulas had been above ground. She
shrugged her shoulders and turned her back expressively upon him.

"You see those little round holes covered with white film?" she said to
Trennahan. "They lead down to the tarantulas' houses,--real little
houses, with doors on hinges. People pour water down, and the old
tarantula comes up--back first, dragging his legs after him--to see what
is the matter. Then they set two of them at each other with sticks, and
they--the tarantulas--never stop fighting until they have torn each
other to death: they have two curved sharp teeth."

Good sport for variety's sake, thought Trennahan. I see myself engaged
on warm afternoons.

XVII

After breakfast Trennahan lay in a long chair on the verandah and smoked
undisturbed. Mrs. Yorba was busy, and Magdalena sat up in her room,
longing to go down, but fearing to weary him. She recalled the early
hours with vivid pleasure. For the first time in her life she was almost
pleased with herself. She took out her writing materials; but her
beloved art would not hold her. She went to the window and unfastened
the shutter softly. Trennahan was not talking to himself nor even
walking up and down the hard boards below, but the aroma of his cigar
gave evidence that he was there. It mingled with the perfume of the pink
and white roses swarming over the roof of the verandah almost to her
window.

She experienced her first impulse to decorate herself, to gather a
handful of those roses and place them in her hair. Her aunt had never
been without that national adornment, worn with the grace of her slender
girlhood.

She stepped over the sill, catching her breath as the tin roof cracked
beneath her feet, but gathered the roses and returned to her mirror.
With the nimble fingers of her race she arranged the roses at one side
of her head, above and behind the ear. Certainly they were becoming. She
also discovered that she had her aunt's turn of the head, her graceful
way of raising her hand to her ear.

But it is so little, she thought with a sigh; if I could only have the
rest!

Her mind wandered back to the heroines of her aunt's tales. If she but
had the beauty of those wondrous girls, Trennahan would have taken fire
in the hour that he met her, as their caballeros had done. The thought
made her