d a serious, gentle way about her.

The maid found mademoiselle not only still abed, but stretched on a rack
of torture as well, her helpless gaze fixed on a Mexican woman with a
hot iron. It was a flatiron, and it was being applied to Jacqueline's
poor rumpled frock. The dress was spread over a cloth on the floor, and
the woman strove tantalizingly, and Jacqueline was trying to direct her.

"Madame is served," Berthe announced.

Madame raised herself on an elbow and looked at the tray, at the sorry
chinaware, at the earthen supplements. "Served?" she repeated. "Berthe,
exaggeration is a very bad habit. But child, what are you about? This is
not a petit dejeuner!"

"I know, madame, but he told me to bring it. He said we'd be traveling,
and there wouldn't be time for a second breakfast."

"_He?_ Who in the world----"

"Why, the, the American monsieur. He said just coffee wasn't enough, and
for me to bring along the entire contest of marksmanship--the, the whole
shooting match--and for madame to hurry."

"Berthe! one would say you thought him a prince."

"He--he is a kind of prince," said the little Bretonne doggedly.

Madame whistled softly. Still, she ate a hearty breakfast.

Meantime, outside two resplendent horsemen were galloping up the curving
sweep of the wide road. Their haste smacked of vast importance, and the
very dazzling flash of their brass helmets in the sunlight had a certain
arrogance. The foremost jerked his horse's bit with a cruel petulance
and drew up before the hacienda house. Several natives were basking on
the steps, and he cut at them sharply with his whip.

"Wake, you r-rats!" A Teutonic thickness of speech clogged his
utterance, and he turned to his companion. "Tell this canaille," he
snarled in Flemish, "to go fetch their master here at once."

The administrador came hurrying, and was overcome. His hospitable flow
gushed and choked at its source before the splendor of the two
cavaliers. They were Belgians. The first wore a long blue coat bedecked
with golden leaves and belted with a sash. Crosses and stars dangled on
his breast. His breeches were white doe, and his high glossy boots had
wrinkles like a mousquetaire's. Heavy tassels flapped from his sword
hilt. A brass eagle was perched on his helmet. Altogether, here was a
glittering bit of flotsam from the new Mexican Empire. But a narrowness
between the man's eyes affected one unpleasantly. It was a mean and a
sour scowl, of a fe