gently.

Her troubled eyes rested on his. The protest in her heart was still
urgent, but she dared go no further. Some instinct of maidenly reticence
curbed the passionate rebellion against his decision. If she said more,
she might say too much. With a swift, sinuous turn of the slender body
she ran into the house and left him standing there.

* * * * *

Daisy sat at one end of the pergola mending a glove. It was in the
pleasant cool of the evening just as dusk was beginning to fall. A light
breeze rustled the rose-leaves and played with the tendrils of her soft,
wavy hair. The coolness was grateful after the heat of an Arizona day.

The front gate creaked. A man was coming in, a Mexican of the peon
class. He moved up the walk toward her with a slight limp. As he drew
closer, she observed negligently that he was of early middle age,
ragged, and of course dirty. Age and lack of soap had so dyed his serape
that the original color was quite gone.

He bowed to her with the native courtesy that belongs to even the peons
of his race. A swift patter of Spanish fell from his lips.

Miss Ellington shook her head. "No sabe Espanol."

The man gushed into a second eruption of liquid vowels, accompanied this
time by gestures which indicated that he wanted food.

The young woman nodded, went into the house, and secured from Mrs.
Seymour a plate of broken fragments left over from supper. With this and
a cup of coffee she returned to the pergola.

"Gracias, senorita." The shining black poll of the man bowed over the
donation as he accepted it.

He sat cross-legged among the roses and ate what had been given him.
Daisy observed critically that his habit of eating was not at all nice.
He discarded the fork she had brought, using only the knife and his
fingers. The meat he tore apart and devoured ravenously, cramming it
wolfishly into his mouth as fast as he could. A few days before she had
fallen into an argument with Steve Yeager about the civilization of the
Mexicans. She wished he could see this specimen.

The man spoke, after he had cleaned the plate, licked up the gravy, and
gulped down the coffee. His words fell in a slow drawl, not in Spanish,
but in English.

"Don't you reckon mebbe I could get a ham sandwich too?"

The actress jumped. "Steve, you fraud!" she screamed, and flew at him.

"Do I win?" he asked, protecting himself as he backed away.

"Of course you do. Why haven't we be