Fletcher's
connection with it, and accidentally of his intended visit to Ramirez.
His chance meeting with the carriage on the highway had determined his
course.

As he rode into the courtyard he observed that it was also approached
by another road, evidently nearer Los Gatos, and probably the older
and shorter communication between the two ranchos. The fact was
significantly demonstrated a moment later. He had given his horse to a
servant, sent in his card to Clementina, and had dropped listlessly on
one of the benches of the gallery surrounding the patio, when a horseman
rode briskly into the opposite gateway, and dismounted with a familiar
air. A waiting peon who recognized him informed him that the Dona was
engaged with a visitor, but that they were both returning to the gallery
for chocolate in a moment. The stranger was the man he had left only an
hour before--Don Diego Fletcher!

In an instant the idiotic fatuity of his position struck him fully. His
only excuse for following Clementina had been to warn her of the coming
of this man who had just entered, and who would now meet her as quickly
as himself. For a brief moment the idea of quietly slipping out to the
corral, mounting his horse again, and flying from the rancho, crossed
his mind; but the thought that he would be running away from the man he
had just challenged, and perhaps some new hostility that had sprung up
in his heart against him, compelled him to remain. The eyes of both men
met; Fletcher's in half-wondering annoyance, Grant's in ill-concealed
antagonism. What they would have said is not known, for at that moment
the voices of Clementina and Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the passage, and
they both entered the gallery. The two men were standing together; it
was impossible to see one without the other.

And yet Grant, whose eyes were instantly directed to Clementina, thought
that she had noted neither. She remained for an instant standing in the
doorway in the same self-possessed, coldly graceful pose he remembered
she had taken on the platform at Tasajara. Her eyelids were slightly
downcast, as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shy
maiden sensitiveness; in her hesitation Mrs. Ramirez passed impatiently
before her.

"Mother of God!" said that lively lady, regarding the two speechless
men, "is it an indiscretion we are making here--or are you dumb? You,
Don Diego, are loud enough when you and Don Jose are together; at least
in