Gore, who studied her with far more care and interest, because to him she seemed deeply worth study, did not himself feel compelled to remember her triple strain of race. For to him she seemed splendidly, adorably simple. He was far from falling into Sarella's shallow mistake of calling that simplicity "stupidity"; to him it appeared a sublimation of purity, rarely noble and fine. That she was book-ignorant he knew, as well as that she was life-ignorant; but he did not think her intellectually narrow, even intellectually fallow. Along what roads her mind moved he could not, by mere study of her, discover; yet he was sure it did not stagnate without motion or life. * * * * * About a month after the arrival of Sarella, one Saturday night at supper, that young person observed that Mr. Gore's place was vacant. Mariquita must equally have noted the fact, but she had said nothing. "Isn't Mr. Gore coming to his supper?" Sarella asked her. Don Joaquin thought this out of place. His daughter's silence on the subject had pleased him better. "I don't know," Mariquita answered, glancing towards her father. "No," he said; "he has ridden down to Maxwell." Sometimes one or other of the cowboys would ride down to Maxwell, and reappear, without question or remark. "I wonder he did not mention he was going," Sarella complained. "Of course he mentioned it," Don Joaquin said loudly. "He would not go without asking me." "But to us ladies," Sarella persisted, "it would have been better manners." "That was not at all necessary," said Don Joaquin; "Mariquita would not expect it." "_I_ would, though. It ought to have struck him that one might have a communication for him. I should have had commissions for him." It was evident that Sarella had ruffled Don Joaquin, and it was the first time anyone had seen him annoyed by her. Next day, after the midday meal, Sarella followed Mariquita out of doors, and said to her, yawning and laughing. "Don't you miss Mr. Gore?" Mariquita answered at once and quite simply: "Miss him? He was never here till a month ago--" "Nor was I," Sarella interrupted pouting prettily. "But you'd miss me, now." "Only you're not going away." "You take it for granted I shall stop, then?" (And Sarella looked complacent.) "That I'm a fixture." "I never thought of your going away," Mariquita answered, with a formula rather habitual to her. "Where would you go?" "I should decide on that when I decided to go." Sarella declared oracularly. But Mariquita took it with irritating calmness. "I don't believe you will decide to go," she said with that gravity and plainness of hers that often irritated Sarella--who liked _badinage_. "It would be useless." "Suppose," Sarella suggested, pinching the younger girl's arm playfully, "suppose I were to think of getting married. Shouldn't I have to go then?" "I never thought of that--" Mariquita was beginning, but Sarella pinched and interrupted her.