ulders. "You will not comprehend. It
was because of his being a brigand that he stayed not with us. My father
would not have object if he have present himself to me for marriage in
these times. I would not have object, for I was young, and we have knew
nothing. It was he who have object. For why? Inside of his heart he have
feel he was a brigand."

"But you might have reformed him in time," said Demorest.

She again shrugged her shoulders. "Quien sabe." After a pause she added
with infinite gravity: "And before he have reform, it is bad for the
menage. I should invite to my house some friend. They arrive, and one
say, 'I have not the watch of my pocket,' and another, 'The ring of my
finger, he is gone,' and another, 'My earrings, she is loss.' And I am
obliged to say, 'They reside now in the pocket of my hoosband; patience!
a little while--perhaps to-morrow--he will restore.' No," she continued,
with an air of infinite conviction, "it is not good for the menage--the
necessity of those explanation."

"You told me he was handsome," said Joan, passing her arm carelessly
around Dona Rosita's comfortable waist. "How did he look?"

"As an angel! He have long curls to his back. His moustache was as
silk, for he have had never a barber to his face. And his eyes--Santa
Maria!--so soft and so--so melankoly. When he smile it is like the
moonlight. But," she added, rising to her feet and tossing the end
of her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a little laugh--"it is
finish--Adelante! Dr-rrive on!"

"I don't want to destroy your belief in the connection of your friend
with the road agents," said Demorest grimly, "but if he belongs to
their band it is in an inferior capacity. Most of them are known to
the authorities, and I have heard it even said that their leader or
organizer is a very unromantic speculator in San Francisco."

But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who
superciliously turned their backs upon it and the suggester. Joan
dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita. "And you
have never seen him since?"

"Never."

"I should--at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way," said Joan
in a positive whisper.

"Eh?" said Dona Rosita, laughing. "So eet is YOU, Juanita, that have the
romance--eh? Ah, bueno! 'you have the house--so I gif to you the lover
also.' I place him at your disposition." She made a mock gesture of
elaborate and complete abnegation. "But," she added in Joan'