“Soon the caravans from the East will arrive,” he pressed. “At any moment now they may come, and I, I must not linger, once they are here. I have urgent affairs calling me back.” Fatal words. They aroused at once in a rebel heart the half-stilled desire for life to bring her more, the half-acknowledged wonder as to what that Eastern land might hold for her. She remembered again the thrill of the days when the caravans came. Hesitated, and was lost, to Don Tiburcio at least, wholly for that day. “_La Caravana!_” she exclaimed, all glowing animation at once. “How exciting! One would have thought that the Comanches or the Apaches had them all. Why, then, do they delay so, when they are keeping you waiting, señor?” Consuelo’s lashes fluttered disturbingly. Having yielded not an inch, poutingly she dared Don Tiburcio’s gaze. _Coqueta!_ Minx! What was he to think? Did she want him? How much more must her vanity be flattered? Perhaps Don Tiburcio himself was a little bit tired of the waiting. Disconcerted, he said no more for the moment, and was rewarded by an utterly ravishing smile. Bees droned through the sunlight and a silence like molten honey. Beyond the adobe wall and across the “sakey” at the end of the garden suddenly there rose a shouting that ran through the town. “_Aqui vienen los carros. La Caravana!_ [Here come the wagons. The caravan].” Don Tiburcio rose quickly to his feet. “Pardon, señorita, I must go to meet them at once. _Hasta luego, pues_ [Till later, then].” He bowed his departure almost unnoticed by Consuelo, for the tumult in her chest. She ran through the house. It was almost deserted, except for old Lupe and for Doña Gertrudis, who had already taken her seat beside the front windows and was peering discreetly, but with avidity, through the blinds. Consuelo flounced across the courtyard, through her own room, and into a room beyond. It was Felicita’s, and the window there was neither barred nor curtained. A high window, with a tiny railed balcony from which one could see way up or down the street. But it was already filled with Felicita, who found herself pulled down by the skirts, while Consuelo clambered up on a chair and disposed her own person for a fine view in either direction.