“To think,” voiced Anita Fernandez, “that a husband is to come to me up El Camino Real all the way from San Francisco de Asis--a husband and distant relative at one and the same time! To marry a man I never have seen before--is that not a hardship, Señora Vallejo?” “Rojerio Rocha,” Señora Vallejo replied, “undoubtedly will be a gentleman, a pattern of a man and an excellent husband. There will be ample time for courtship after he arrives; there is no need for rushing the marriage ceremony. You do not have to wed him if he is not a proper man.” “But my father wished it,” Anita said. “Your father knew that Rojerio Rocha had been left without much of the world’s goods. He is of a very distant branch of the family; yet your father desired to see him better equipped with wealth. He desired your marriage to Rojerio Rocha, knowing the man’s good blood, but above all things he would desire, were he still on earth, your happiness. You can make up your mind, my dear Anita, after Rojerio Rocha arrives.” “I wonder what he will be like, how he will appear, whether he can smile and sing, and speak kindly.” “All of that, whether it be Rocha or Fernandez blood in his veins,” said Señora Vallejo. “I shall, indeed, be glad to see him. How long it has been since a stranger of quality came to us out of the north!” The man beside the fire chuckled at that, and got up to walk slowly down the slope toward them. Six feet away he swept his sombrero from his head and bowed his best, and he smiled when he spoke. “I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Señorita Anita Fernandez?” he said. “Señora Vallejo, did you speak?” asked the girl, without looking at the man beside her. “’Twas a coyote barked,” Señora Vallejo replied. “Indeed, my poor voice may seem like the barking of a coyote to one with a true musical ear,” the caballero said, “though some have said it is near perfect in tone.” “Are you mumbling, Señora Vallejo?” Anita demanded. “I am not, Anita, dear. It is the wind whistling through the olive trees.” “Ah! We grow with acquaintance!” said the caballero, lightly. “At first my voice sounded like the barking of a coyote, and now it sounds like the whistling of the wind through the trees. We grow more musical, indeed.” Señora Vallejo bit her lip, and resolutely kept her face from that of the man standing beside her. “Do you suppose, Señora Vallejo,” asked Anita, “that the odious Captain Fly-by-Night will have the audacity to come to San Diego de Alcalá, as he boasted he would do? Has the man no brains at all, no sense of the fitness of things? San Diego de Alcalá is no place for gamblers such as he. He pollutes the plaza if he walks across it!” “No doubt the creature is senseless enough to come,” said Señora Vallejo. She dabbed at her face with a lace handkerchief, and, in dabbing, dropped it. In an instant the caballero was down upon one knee, had picked up the handkerchief, and, remaining on one knee, tendered it.