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I turned away in some discomfiture to join Enriquez, who was calmly awaiting me, with a cigarette in his mouth, outside the sala. Yet he looked so unconscious of any previous absurdity that I hesitated in what I thought was a necessary warning. He, however, quickly precipitated it. Glancing after the retreating figures of the two women, he said: “Thees mees from Boston is return to her house. You do not accompany her? I shall. Behold me–I am there.” But I linked my arm firmly in his. Then I pointed out, first, that she was already accompanied by a servant; secondly, that if I, who knew her, had hesitated to offer myself as an escort, it was hardly proper for him, a perfect stranger, to take that liberty; that Miss Mannersley was very punctilious of etiquette, which he, as a Castilian gentleman, ought to appreciate.

“But will she not regard lofe–the admiration excessif?” he said, twirling his thin little mustache meditatively.

“No; she will not,” I returned sharply; “and you ought to understand that she is on a different level from your Manuelas and Carmens.”

“Pardon, my friend,” he said gravely; “thees women are ever the same. There is a proverb in my language. Listen: ‘Whether the sharp blade of the Toledo pierce the satin or the goatskin, it shall find behind it ever the same heart to wound.’ I am that Toledo blade–possibly it is you, my friend. Wherefore, let us together pursue this girl of Boston on the instant.”

But I kept my grasp on Enriquez’ arm, and succeeded in restraining his mercurial impulses for the moment. He halted, and puffed vigorously at his cigarette; but the next instant he started forward again. “Let us, however, follow with discretion in the rear; we shall pass her house; we shall gaze at it; it shall touch her heart.”

Ridiculous as was this following of the young girl we had only just parted from, I nevertheless knew that Enriquez was quite capable of attempting it alone, and I thought it better to humor him by consenting to walk with him in that direction; but I felt it necessary to say:

“I ought to warn you that Miss Mannersley already looks upon your performances at the sala as something outre and peculiar, and if I were you I shouldn’t do anything to deepen that impression.”

“You are saying she ees shock?” said Enriquez, gravely.

I felt I could not conscientiously say that she was shocked, and he saw my hesitation. “Then she have jealousy of the senoritas,” he observed, with insufferable complacency. “You observe! I have already said. It is ever so.”

I could stand it no longer. “Look here, Harry,” I said, “if you must know it, she looks upon you as an acrobat–a paid performer.”

“Ah!”–his black eyes sparkled–“the torero, the man who fights the bull, he is also an acrobat.”

“Yes; but she thinks you a clown!–a GRACIOSO DE TEATRO–there!”

“Then I have make her laugh?” he said coolly.

I don’t think he had; but I shrugged my shoulders.

“BUENO!” he said cheerfully. “Lofe, he begin with a laugh, he make feenish with a sigh.”

I turned to look at him in the moonlight. His face presented its habitual Spanish gravity–a gravity that was almost ironical. His small black eyes had their characteristic irresponsible audacity– the irresponsibility of the vivacious young animal. It could not be possible that he was really touched with the placid frigidities of Miss Mannersley. I remembered his equally elastic gallantries with Miss Pinkey Smith, a blonde Western belle, from which both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on slowly I continued more persuasively: “Of course this is only your nonsense; but don’t you see, Miss Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your nature?” I hesitated, for it suddenly struck me that it WAS really his nature. “And–hang it all!–you don’t want her to believe you a common buffoon., or some intoxicated muchacho.”