“I wish to dance with him.  Bring him to me.”

“But, senorita, I tell thee thou wouldst not like him.  Holy heaven!  Why do those eyes flash so?  Thou lookest as if thou wouldst fight with thy little fists.”

“Bring him to me.”

Don Carmelo walked obediently over to Don Pablo, although burning with jealousy.

“Senor, at your service,” he said.  “I wish to introduce you to the most charming senorita in the room.”

“Which?” asked Ignestria, incuriously.

Don Carmelo indicated Eulogia with a grand sweep of his hand.

“That little thing?  Why, there are a dozen prettier girls in the room than she, and I have not cared to meet any of them!”

“But she has commanded me to take you to her, senor, and—­look at the men crowding about her—­do you think I dare to disobey?”

The stranger’s dark gray eyes became less insensible.  He was a handsome man, with a tall figure, and a smooth strong face; but about him hung the indolence of the Californian.

“Very well,” he said, “take me to her.”

He asked her to dance, and after a waltz Eulogia said she was tired, and they sat down within a proper distance of Dona Pomposa’s eagle eye.

“What do you think of the women of San Luis Obispo?” asked Eulogia, innocently.  “Are not they handsome?”

“They are not to be compared with the women of Monterey—­since you ask me.”

“Because they find the men of San Luis more gallant than the Senor Don Pablo Ignestria!”

“Do they?  One, I believe, asked to have me introduced to her!”

“True, senor.  I wished to meet you that you might fall in love with me, and that the ladies of San Luis might have their vengeance.”

He stared at her.

“Truly, senorita, but you do not hide your cards.  And why, then, should I fall in love with you?”

“Because I am different from the women of Monterey.”

“A good reason why I should not.  I have been in every town in California, and I admire no women but those of my city.”

“And because you will hate me first.”

“And if I hate you, how can I love you?”

“It is the same.  You hate one woman and love another.  Each is the same passion, only to a different person out goes a different side.  Let the person loved or hated change his nature, and the passion will change.”

He looked at her with more interest.

“In truth I think I shall begin with love and end with hate, senorita.  But that wisdom was not born in your little head; for sixteen years, I think, have not sped over it, no?  It went in, if I mistake not, through those bright eyes.”

“Yes, senor, that is true.  I am not content to be just like other girls of sixteen.  I want to know—­to know. Have you ever read any books, senor?”

“Many.”  He looked at her with a lively interest now.  “What ones have you read?”