During these delicious hours in the shadow-dappled patio, as heretofore, Benicia continued a tantalizing enigma to the man of cities. While seeming to give so freely of herself in laughing quip and quick answer to his sallies, never was there that least suspicion of some overtone to her buoyancy the man yearned to catch; not the quick revealing of secret depths in the eyes which would betray a heart responsive to the waves of the man’s love enveloping her. Yet the lips of the girl, full, soft, trembling with unconcealed promise of richness to the one conquering them: these were not the lips of one devoid of love’s alluring tyrannies. Nor was the rounded body of her, fully ripened to share in the law of life giving, one to wither outside love’s garden. Grant could not speculate, with tremors of eagerness, on the flood of passion that was dammed behind the girl’s sure mastery of herself. Dare he believe that he might be the one to loose that flood? As he sat there in the odorous garden the nimble, superficial part of his brain was playing with bubbles while the deeper fibre of him resolved that nothing in the world mattered beyond possessing Benicia’s love. When luncheon was cleared away--it had been a veritable feast of laughter--Benicia clapped her hands and gave some direction to the servant answering. The Indian woman disappeared in the body of the house, soon to come waddling out under the weight of the great harp. Grant gasped his surprise; he never had associated harps with any surroundings other than the orchestra pit. “My Irish ancestors, who were kings in Donegal, always called for their harp after a feast,” Benicia declared with laughter in her eyes. “That is the reason we Irish are such dreamers. The harp is the stairs to dreams. Listen, señor, and hear if I tell the truth.” Grant watched her, fascinated. Her slender body was in the shade of a great palm frond, but when she leaned her head forward against the carved sounding board a narrow lance of sunshine shot down to kindle her hair to flame there against the gold. As her bare arms passed in swift flight of swallows across the field of strings shadows and sunlight played upon them in gules and chevrons of black and ivory. First she gave the solo, _Depuis le Jour_, from some opera Grant vaguely recalled; it was a mad thing, wherein the great instrument thundered to the far recesses of the patio garden. Then the girl’s mood changed and was interpreted in the sighing motif of _In the Garden_. It was all bird song and lisping fountains. Grant allowed his eyes to close so his soul could take flight with the music. Slowly, reluctantly, Benicia’s fingers swept the final chords. The great harp was still. Out from the shadow of a flanking archway stepped a dapper little figure in a cloak. Heels clicked sharply and the marionette bowed low. It was Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. CHAPTER XI THE MARK OF EL ROJO