toms still included certain
pleasures which dated back to the Cortez invasion, as well as many of the
latest American diversions.

Harboro tactfully sought for more definite details; and when he gathered
that the affair would be too immense to be at all formal--that there would
be introductions only so far as separate groups of persons were concerned,
and that guests would be expected to come and go with perfect freedom, he
accepted the invitation gratefully. He had not forgotten the slight which
the two towns had put upon him and Sylvia, and he was not willing to
subject himself to snubs from people who had behaved badly. But he
realized that it was necessary for Sylvia to see people, to get away from
the house occasionally, to know other society than his own.

In truth, Harboro had been very carefully taking account of Sylvia's
needs. It seemed to him that she had not been really herself since that
Sunday morning when he had had to place his life in jeopardy. In a way,
she seemed to love him more passionately than ever before; but not so
light-heartedly, so gladly. Some elfin quality in her nature was gone, and
Harboro would gladly have brought it back again. She had listless moods;
and sometimes as they sat together he surprised a strange look in her
eyes. She seemed to be very far away from him; and he had on these
occasions the dark thought that even the substance of her body was gone,
too--that if he should touch her she would vanish in a cloud of dust, like
that woman in _Archibald Malmaison_, after she had remained behind the
secret panel, undiscovered, for a generation.

And so Harboro decided that he and Sylvia would go to the big affair at
the Quemado.

CHAPTER XVIII

There was an atmosphere of happiness and bustle in the house when the
night of the outing came. Harboro easily managed a half-holiday (it was a
Saturday), and he had ample time to make careful selection of horses for
Sylvia and himself at an Eagle Pass stable. He would have preferred a
carriage, but Sylvia had assumed that they would ride, and she plainly
preferred that mode of travel. She had been an excellent horsewoman in the
old San Antonio days.

Old Antonia was drawn out of her almost trance-like introspection. The
young senora was excited, as a child might have been, at the prospect of a
long ride through the chaparral, and she must not be disappointed. She had
fashioned a riding-habit and a very charming little jacket, and