there came a change, and it grew as she saw and
appreciated the man in him. Her caprices fell from her, and she was the
shrewd woman of the world, a deft creature of courts, a cunning weaver
of the delicate skeins of intrigue and politics. A glint of craft and
purpose struck from the gray eyes, as in preparation for battle. Her
mischievous bantering had really been fraught with design, and by it she
had revealed to herself this man. But the change in her came when he
proved an antagonist, as she now supposed him to be. For in the
uncloaking he stood forth a Confederate. His cause was lost. He was in
Mexico. He was on a mission, no doubt. One question remained, what could
the mission be?

Abrupt frankness, with its guileful calculation to surprise one into
betrayal, was the subtlest diplomacy. "Let us see," she mused aloud,
"you, your comrades, monsieur, you have no country now? Bien, that
accounts for your interest in Maximilian?"

"And what is your interest, Miss--Jack-leen?"

She staggered before the riposte. The "Jack-leen" was innocent
blundering, she knew that. He had heard Rodrigo address her so, and he
used it in all respect. But there was her own question turned on
herself. By "her interest" he of course meant the interest she was
showing in himself; he was not referring it to Maximilian. And yet the
double meaning was there, just the same. He had struck back, that was
certain, but because she could not tell where, nor even whether he had
wounded, she was afraid to parry, much more to venture another thrust.
Those who had sent the rustic evidently knew what they were about. He
could shoot well, which was exhilarating. To redeem one's country's
discredited bills, was quixotic. She rose to that, because she was
French. But to fence with herself--well, that was quality. Instinctive,
inbred, unconscious, and unregistered in any studbook of Burke or
Gotha--but quality. And she recognized it, for there was deference in
the silence which her baffled diplomacy now counseled.

They passed many natives plodding on to Valles with market stuff, going
at the Inditos' tireless foxtrot, now a man in loincloth stooped under a
great bundle of straw or charcoal, or a family entire, including burro
and dog. Of a gray-bearded patriarch with a chicken coop strapped to his
back, Driscoll inquired the distance to an hacienda of the region which
had the name of Moctezuma. "Probablemente, it will be ten leagues
farther on, senor,"