It was beyond me to enter into this spirit of merriment. I forced myself to smile outwardly and to meet their lively quips and sallies with such nimbleness of wit as I possessed. But it went no deeper than show on my part. The longer we sat, the heavier grew my heart. I had no joy of my food. Even the peaches and the other fruits of the lower river tasted bitter in my mouth. For with each fresh turn of the conversation I saw my Alisanda slipping farther away from me, her kindly glance giving place to the haughty gaze of the Spanish lady of blood, her familiar address cooling to stately condescension. I was no longer "Juan," but "doctor" and "senor," and, near the end, "Doctor Robinson." We had come to the sweetmeats, and I noted with despair that she was on the point of withdrawing. She had even thrust back her chair to rise, when, with scant ceremony, a young soldier in uniform entered and stated that His Excellency, General Wilkinson, desired the immediate presence of Senor Vallois. "_Carambo!_" exclaimed Don Pedro, looking regretfully at the sweetmeats. "He might have chosen a fitter time! It is in my mind to wait." "Is not your business with him the affair of others no less than your own?" murmured Alisanda. "_Santisima Virgen!_ You do well to remind me! Juan, with your permission--" "_Adios!_ Good fortune to you!" I cried, as he rose. Another moment and he and the soldier had left the room. I was alone with Alisanda. She rose, with a trace of inquietude beneath her calm hauteur. I moved around the table to join her. "Spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "It is unkind to take a man of English blood from his wine." "Senorita," I answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the country. I do not wonder. Our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end. There is no longer need for such slight service as I was able to render--" "Service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip. Though cut to the quick, I could not give over. "Alisanda," I said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days since we met on the Monongahela?" She raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose strand of hair down her cheek. "_Santisima Virgen!_" she murmured, with fine-drawn irony. "It has ever been a marvel to me--so chance a meeting." "Chance, indeed!" I replied. "Chance that the utmost of my effort could not trace the road by which you left Washington; chance that Colonel Burr gave me the clew for which I sought; chance that of the nine horses I rode to a stand between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, none failed me in my need." She gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "_Madre de los Dolores!_ What a pity! A little time, and the gulf will roll between." "I will cross that gulf!" "Not so; for it is the gulf of the Cross," she mocked. "I go the way of Vera Cruz--the True Cross. No heretic may pass that way."