tless ones within would overlook half the linen unless she was on
the spot to watch and direct. But these two had come to their first
clash of wills, and her husband had little liking for such firm defiance
of his wishes. Well she knew the little weather-signs in his face. When
his eyebrows took just that tilt, and when the nostrils were drawn in
and quivered with his breathing, then was it wise that she should remain
by his side. The senora knew well that words are never so harsh between
the male of our species when their women are beside them. So, suffering
mental torment because of the careless peonas, she, nevertheless, sent
Teresita after the fine, linen apron from which she meant to remove a
whole two inches of woof for the new pattern of drawnwork which the
Donna Lucia had sent her. She would remain as a buffer between these two
whose eyes were too hard when they looked at each other.

"It seems a pity that young men nowadays cannot contain themselves
without quarreling," sighed the senora, acting upon the theory that
anger is most dangerous when it is silent, and so giving the
conversational ball a push.

"Is there no way, Senor, in which you might avert this trouble? Truly it
saddens me to think of it, for Jose has been as my own son. His mother
and I were as twin sisters, Senor, and his mother prayed me to watch
over him when she had gone. 'Si, madre mia' would he tell me, when I
gave him the good counsel. And now he comes no more, and he wants to
fight the duelo! Is there no way, Senor?"

The hardness left Jack's lips but not his eyes, while he looked from her
to the don, smoking imperturbably his cigar beside her.

"There is no way, Senora, except for a coward. I have done what I could;
I know that Jose's skill is great with riatas, and the choice was mine.
I might have said pistols," he reminded her gently, but with meaning.

The plump hands of the senora went betrayingly into the air and her
earrings tinkled with the horror that shook her cushiony person. "Not
pistols! No, no--for then Jose would surely be killed! Gracias, Senor!
With riatas my Jose can surely give good account of himself. Three times
has he won the medalla oro in fair contest. He is a wizard with the
rawhide. Myself, I have wept with pride to see him throw it at the
fiestas--"

"Mother mine, Margarita would have you come at once," the senorita
interrupted her. "Little Francisco has burned his legs with hot water,
and Margarita think