He had puzzled over her that day, trying to account for the wide difference of type she presented, not knowing that Yankee marriages were common among the first families of California. Her hair was of a reddish brown, dusky in its depths where the Saxon strain mastered the Latin; her fair skin was dashed as she had said, with a little partridge-flight of freckles across her nose. Not of a prettiness such as would be appealing to these fast-maturing youths; rather a sober and studious type, her gray eyes wise and clear. There was a thinness in her cheek, as if whetted by a sorrow, the reflection of trouble in her eyes. This he remembered, picturing her again, swiftly, as he stood trying to make fast a line to his swirling thoughts. He must get hold of the shoe, he must create some sort of diversion that would lead the two strollers away from the tree, whatever their curious humor to pry into his supposed romance might be. The girl must be brought down out of the tree and taken to the house by some sequestered way, and all must be done in a matter of minutes, before her absence from the side of her duenna could connect her with the lost shoe. The two young men had stopped beneath the tree, laughing over their discovery. Henderson feared the girl's fright might betray her, not knowing how improbable it was that a Mexican gentleman would look in a tree for a lady, though the rustling of her movement might be plain in his ears. "What kind of a shoe is this--a sheep-skin sandal?" Don Roberto inquired, a laugh in his voice over the thought of this interrupted love-scene between his valet and some day-laborer's girl. "Come to the moonlight with this precious discovery, Don Fernando; let us see." Don Fernando, the young man who had stumbled upon the shoe, hesitated, the small thing in his hand. "It seems to be a lady's dancing-shoe. I believe such as might be meeting your servant under a tree by night would not wear a shoe of this kind, Don Roberto. Somebody has lost it in a stroll, and could not find it again in the dark." "Is it possible?" Don Roberto asked, something more than surprise in his voice, a thing ominous, suspicious. "Let us have a look at it over here." "It is just a little thing of silk and kid," said Don Fernando, temporizing as if undecided what to do. "Step into the moonlight, Don Fernando--it is half as bright as day. We'll see this pretty shoe, then watch for the mate of it. What a joke it will be to give back her shoe!" "Oh, Don Roberto, Don Roberto!" his friend protested gently. "But the shoe--give me the shoe, then, Don Fernando." [Illustration] "If you will pry into a lady's misfortune," Don Fernando laughed, passing the shoe to his friend's outstretched hand. "Permit me," said Henderson, snatching the shoe from Roberto's fingers. "Impertinent dog!"