His being still thrilled at the memory. He had met her, Constancia de la Rama, at a baile. She was dancing the escupiton, and right away he saw that she was not as the others. The grace of her balancing waist, of the airy arm-gestures was not rounded and timid as that of her sisters--her grace was angular. Her black eyes did not fix a hypothetical point between her shilena-shod little feet; they looked boldly at those who addressed her. She did not squirm and giggle at compliments, but accepted them freely and boisterously. And the Maestro had the irritating sense of having met her somewhere, sometime, before. He danced with her. In honour of the Americano, rigidon, escupiton, dreamy waltz had been abolished in favour of a Sousa march played in rag-time. They had danced the two-step together, and with stupor he had found himself led. It was she who determined the length of the glide, the way they should turn, how the cape of chairs should be doubled. And so they had slid along the whole floor in three steps, had whirled like tops, and his final desperate attempt to take command had resulted in a woeful lurch and tangle. And as she stalked in her long, loose stride toward the dressing-room to readjust her saya, somewhat in distress from the Maestro's last effort, it had suddenly flashed upon him where he had seen her before. He had seen her, not in the Philippines, but in the United States, not as an individual, but as a type. He had seen her type in the co-educational colleges of his own country. She was a co-ed, that's what she was! When she came out again, he asked her to be his Maestra. "Forty pesos a month," she said, dreamily. "And you would teach me American?" "You would have to study English and teach it at the school." "I will begin Monday," she said. She had not even asked the consent of her parents. At the time, how pleased he had been at this refreshing independence, and yet, in the light of later events, how ominous it really was! It was a time of joy. She had attacked her new task with alert energy. From the first the Girl's School had become the envy of the maestros of the whole province. He could see her yet, leading her stolid little brownies in song. "Chi-rrrries rrri-pa! Chi-rrries rrri-pa! Woo weel buy my chi-rrries rrri-pa!" she tremoloed, in piercing falsetto, beating up a small typhoon with her baton of sugar-cane; "chee-rrries rrri-pa--go on! sing! all too-gidderrr! louderr! sing, I say you!--chee-rrries rrri-pa, chee-rrries rri-pa----!" And then, charging a little girl, her right arm and index finger stiffened out like a lance: "Hao menny ligs has ddee cao?" she screeched. "Dee cao has too-a, too-a legs," stammered the little brown maiden, annihilated by the sudden attack. "Ah, 'sus! Hao menny ligs?" she screeched higher, presenting her lance farther down the line. "Ddee cao hes _trrree_ legs!"