troduce your friend."

Grant quickly recovered himself. "I am afraid," he said, coming forward,
"unless Miss Harcourt does, that I am a mere trespasser in your house,
Senora. I saw her pass in your carriage a few moments ago, and having a
message for her I ventured to follow her here."

"It is Mr. Grant, a friend of my father's," said Clementina, smiling
with equanimity, as if just awakening from a momentary abstraction,
yet apparently unconscious of Grant's imploring eyes; "but the other
gentleman I have not the pleasure of knowing."

"Ah! Don Diego Fletcher, a countryman of yours; and yet I think he knows
you not."

Clementina's face betrayed no indication of the presence of her father's
foe, and yet Grant knew that she must have recognized his name, as she
looked towards Fletcher with perfect self-possession. He was too much
engaged in watching her to take note of Fletcher's manifest disturbance,
or the evident effort with which he at last bowed to her. That this
unexpected double meeting with the daughter of the man he had wronged,
and the man who had espoused the quarrel, should be confounding to him
appeared only natural. But he was unprepared to understand the feverish
alacrity with which he accepted Dona Maria's invitation to chocolate,
or the equally animated way in which Clementina threw herself into her
hostess's Spanish levity. He knew it was an awkward situation, that must
be surmounted without a scene; he was quite prepared in the presence of
Clementina to be civil to Fletcher; but it was odd that in this feverish
exchange of courtesies and compliments HE, Grant, should feel the
greater awkwardness and be the most ill at ease. He sat down and took
his part in the conversation; he let it transpire for Clementina's
benefit that he had been to Los Gatos only on business, yet there was
no opportunity for even a significant glance, and he had the added
embarrassment of seeing that she exhibited no surprise nor seemed to
attach the least importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserable
indecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flown
hospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an early
dinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the voluble
Dona Maria--electing him as the distinguished stranger above the
resident Fletcher--monopolized him and attached him to her side. She
would do the honors of her house; she must show him the ruins of the
old Mission besi