“I am afraid,” said Poindexter, “that arresting her would hardly help these people over in the tienda.”

“I am not speaking of them,” responded Mrs. Tucker, with a sudden sublime contempt for the people whose cause she had espoused:  “I am talking of my husband.”

Poindexter bit his lip.  “You’d hardly think of bringing back the strongest witness against him,” he said bluntly.

Mrs. Tucker dropped her eyes and was silent.  A sudden shame suffused Poindexter’s cheek; he felt as if he had struck that woman a blow.  “I beg your pardon,” he said hastily, “I am talking like a lawyer to a lawyer.”  He would have taken any other woman by the hand in the honest fullness of his apology, but something restrained him here.  He only looked down gently on her lowered lashes, and repeated his question if he should remain during the coming interview with Don Jose:  “I must beg you to determine quickly,” he added, “for I already hear him entering the gate.”

“Stay,” said Mrs. Tucker, as the ringing of spurs and clatter of hoofs came from the corral.  “One moment.”  She looked up suddenly, and said, “How long had he known her?” But before he could reply there was a step in the doorway, and the figure of Don Jose Santierra emerged from the archway.

He was a man slightly past middle age, fair and well shaven, wearing a black broadcloth serape, the deeply embroidered opening of which formed a collar of silver rays around his neck, while a row of silver buttons down the side seams of his riding trousers, and silver spurs, completed his singular equipment.  Mrs. Tucker’s swift feminine glance took in these details, as well as the deep salutation, more formal than the exuberant frontier politeness she was accustomed to, with which he greeted her.  It was enough to arrest her first impulse to retreat.  She hesitated and stopped as Poindexter stepped forward, partly interposing between them, acknowledging Don Jose’s distant recognition of himself with an ironical accession of his usual humorous tolerance.  The Spaniard did not seem to notice it, but remained gravely silent before Mrs. Tucker, gazing at her with an expression of intent and unconscious absorption.

“You are quite right, Don Jose,” said Poindexter, with ironical concern, “it is Mrs. Tucker.  Your eyes do not deceive you.  She will be glad to do the honors of her house,” he continued, with a simulation of appealing to her, “unless you visit her on business, when I need not say I shall be only too happy, to attend you, as before.”

Don Jose, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, allowed himself to become conscious of the lawyer’s meaning.  “It is not of business that I come to kiss the Senora’s hand to-day,” he replied, with a melancholy softness; “it is as her neighbor, to put myself at her disposition.  Ah! the what have we here for a lady?” he continued, raising his eyes in deprecation of the surroundings; “a house of nothing, a place of winds and dry bones, without refreshments, or satisfaction, or delicacy.  The Senora will not refuse to make us proud this day to send her of that which we have in our poor home at Los Gatos, to make her more complete.  Of what shall it be?  Let her make choice.  Or if she would commemorate this day by accepting of our hospitality at Los Gatos, until she shall arrange herself the more to receive us here, we shall have too much honor.”