’My beauteous countrywoman gave a most expressive look, which very clearly signified that my instant departure would be satisfactory to her feelings, but my curiosity was so far kindled that I pretended not to understand, but remained standing near the door.  My want of tact seemed once more to vex her, but after a moment’s reflection, she addressed the worthy Teresa.

‘’Senora,’ said she, in a low voice, but still not so low but I could overhear, ‘The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.’

’’If you will follow me, Senora, I will show you to Mr. Albert Pride’s rooms,’ said mine hostess, as she led the way up-stairs.

IV.

‘’Well, Doctor of mine,’ said I, addressing the disinterested Teresa, when after a delay of some twenty minutes she appeared with my dinner, ’what do you think of our last new arrival?  Matters are beginning to grow a little complicated.’

’’What do I think?  Why, I think that she is marvelously beautiful; such a perfect beauty I never saw before.  But yet, her eye displeases me.’

‘’That, allow me to remark, is not a very logical conclusion.’

’’Oh! as for a logical conclusion, I don’t know what that is; but I know just what I feel, though perhaps I can’t tell you in words, why I do feel so; but I am candid, I am; and I tell you, I don’t like her eye.’

’After Donna Teresa’s departure, I sat with the book which usually served me as a companion at meal-times, wide open on the table, but it remained unread.  My strange encounter with this beautiful stranger had taken entire possession of my mind.  What could be the link between her and this Albert Pride, who had for three months been awaiting her arrival?  Why should she be as anxious as he to avoid recognition?  For every thing conspired to prove this—­her emotion when I asked if she were French, her pallor and faintness when I claimed to be a fellow-citizen, her indignation at the thought of my playing the spy upon her, and her hesitation to speak in my presence to Donna Lopez—­all tended to show she desired to preserve the strictest incognito.

’The convent-bells of all Mexico were ringing the Angelus, and I was still seated at the dinner-table, absorbed in deep thought.  My imagination had been so racked that it passed from the domain of the real, and reveled in the most fantastic regions of the ideal, and it required a strong effort of the will to bring back my mind to the dull matter-of-fact aspects of actual life.

’As the evening promised to be magnificent, I determined to refresh my mind by taking a brisk walk.

’Passing down the Calle del Arco, I met an acquaintance, at whose solicitation I entered one of the most fashionably-frequented gambling-houses in the city; it was about nine o’clock, and quite a number of players were assembled.

’Soon after taking my stand at the board of green cloth, so as to have a good view of the game, and to watch the conflicting emotions depicted on the countenances of these devotees of the fickle goddess, I felt a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turning round, beheld at my side General Valiente.