"Have you been suddenly turned into stone?" she asked, with a slightly mocking accent.
"Heaven forbid, señorita!" he at length stammered.
"Then be good enough to answer the question I asked you."
"Nothing easier, señorita. I am indeed Don Cornelio Mendoza de Arrizabal, and have the honour to be a Spanish gentleman."
"That is what I call plain speaking," she said, with a slight pout. "If it be so, caballero, I must ask you to follow me."
"To the end of the world," the young man exclaimed impetuously. "I should never travel in pleasanter company."
"I thank you for the compliment, caballero, but I do not intend to take you so far. I only wish to conduct you to my mistress, who desires to see you and speak with you for an instant."
"_Rayo del cielo!_ If the mistress be only as pretty as the maid, I shall not regret the trip if it last a week."
"My mistress is staying in this inn, only a few steps off."
"All the worse, all the worse! I should have preferred a journey of several leagues before meeting her."
"A truce to gallantry. Are you willing to follow me?"
And throwing his jarana on his back, and bowing for the last time to the audience, who opened a passage for him respectfully,--
The girl turned away and hurried off rapidly, the Spaniard following close at her heels.
Don Cornelio, like all the adventurers whom a hazardous life in Europe had cast on the American shores, nourished in his heart a secret hope of re-establishing, by a rich marriage, his fortunes, which were more than compromised. Several instances, though rare, we allow, of marriages contracted in this romantic fashion, had imbedded this idea deeply in the Spaniard's somewhat windy brain.
He was young, noble, handsome--at least he thought so; hence he possessed all needed for success. It is true that, until this moment, fortune had never deigned to smile on him; no young girl seemed to care for his assassinating glances, or respond to his interested advances. But this ill success had in no way rebuffed him, and what happened at this moment seemed to justify his schemes, by offering him, at the moment he least expected it, that occasion he had so long awaited.
Only one thing saddened his brow, and clouded the internal joy he experienced, and that was the seedy condition of his attire, sadly ill-treated by the brambles, and torn by the sharp points of the rocks, during his long journey in Sonora. But with that characteristic fatuity innate in the Spaniards, he consoled himself by the reflection that his personal advantages would amply compensate for the seedy condition of his dress, and that the lady who had sent for him, if she felt any tender interest in him, would attach but slight value to a new cloak or a faded cloak. It was with these conquering feelings that Don Cornelio arrived behind the _camarista_ at the door of a cuarto, before which she stopped.