She had played fast and loose with so fine a gentleman as Tiburcio de Garcia, he told himself, not asking why. Her family meant more to her than anything else could--her family pride. Who were these dons of New Mexico, anyway, that did not look down on trade as did the old French aristocrats of New Orleans? They had no scruples about trade. But he, Steven Mercer, came from a line of traders who had scoured the Seven Seas; from Caracas to Cuba, from China to Bombay, from Leavenworth to New Mexico. In a rage he strode down the street and turned in at a brightly lighted little place whence came the sounds of music and dancing. Doña Magdalena de Archibec knew how to entertain. Always there was music in her place, a bright-eyed _muchacha_ or two to dance or to be merry with, tables for cards and lotto. The place was merry tonight indeed. There were more than the usual number of trappers and pleasure-loving youths, who frolicked on the eve of Easter, now that Good Friday had passed. A solitary fiddler with but one leg, who sat with his chair tilted back against the wall, threw back his head, closed his eyes, and played all that he saw in his soul. A girl called Rosita slipped smilingly into a chair beside Steven, where he sat at the end of the room. She smiled close into his face and laid a very soft hand over his, humming gay little airs that followed the fiddle like a happy soul singing with a sad one. “You are too sad, señor,” Rosita laughed in a sweet, hoarse voice. She soothed him, reminded him vaguely of some one else. Other men came up to dance with her, but she waved them away. “No, no; he is sad. I must to cheer him.... Why are you sad?” she begged. “Girl, no?” Steven made as if to rise from the table, but her expression showed that she was hurt, that her face was that of a tender child. He sat down again. “What would you do,” he asked, “if you had done everything that some one asked of you, and then after you had risked life and all, asking nothing, found that she had let you be blamed for something you did not do, something--well, a thief, a low common thief? It was a lie, even though a silent lie.” “Perhaps there was a reason,” offered Rosita, sympathetically. “I do not always tell the truth. My papa he does not know that I dance here. He would be most unhappy that I dance to make money, and sing for strange men. Yet it is very nice. I make silver money. I take it to my mamma, my papa--he is crippled, can never walk--and to the eight _niños_. I tell the lie to my parents. Why make them sad? Alas! they must think the streets of Taos are paved with gold or silver that I can find so much money sweeping and washing the dishes for the _padrona_!” She smiled a trifle sadly, and then both of them laughed. A fat, pock-marked Mexican boy came for her and she rose to whirl in solemn circles with him.