l erride it for you, Pancho," she said; "I shall feel," she
continued with exalted although somewhat vague poetry, "that it is of
YOU! You lofe the beast--it is therefore of a necessity YOU, my Pancho!
It is YOUR soul I shall erride like the wings of the wind--your lofe in
this beast shall be my only cavalier for ever." I would have preferred
something whose vicarious qualities were less uncertain than I still
felt Chu Chu's to be, but I kissed the girl's hand submissively. It was
only when I attempted to accompany her in the flesh, on another horse,
that I felt the full truth of my instinctive fears. Chu Chu would not
permit any one to approach her mistress's side. My mounted presence
revived in her all her old blind astonishment and disbelief in my
existence; she would start suddenly, face about, and back away from me
in utter amazement as if I had been only recently created, or with an
affected modesty as if I had been just guilty of some grave indecorum
towards her sex which she really could not stand. The frequency of these
exhibitions in the public highway were not only distressing to me as
a simple escort, but as it had the effect on the casual spectators of
making Consuelo seem to participate in Chu Chu's objections, I felt
that, as a lover, it could not be borne. Any attempt to coerce Chu Chu
ended in her running away. And my frantic pursuit of her was open to
equal misconstruction. "Go it, Miss, the little dude is gainin' on you!"
shouted by a drunken teamster to the frightened Consuelo, once checked
me in mid career. Even the dear girl herself saw the uselessness of my
real presence, and after a while was content to ride with "my soul."

Notwithstanding this, I am not ashamed to say that it was my custom,
whenever she rode out, to keep a slinking and distant surveillance of
Chu Chu on another horse, until she had fairly settled down to her pace.
A little nod of Consuelo's round black-and-red toreador hat or a kiss
tossed from her riding-whip was reward enough!

I remember a pleasant afternoon when I was thus awaiting her in the
outskirts of the village. The eternal smile of the Californian summer
had begun to waver and grow less fixed; dust lay thick on leaf and
blade; the dry hills were clothed in russet leather; the trade winds
were shifting to the south with an ominous warm humidity; a few days
longer and the rains would be here. It so chanced that this afternoon my
seclusion on the roadside was accidental