The señora moved uneasily in her chair and smiled deprecatingly at Jack, then imploringly at her husband. This was washing day, and those shiftless ones within would overlook half the linen unless she was on the spot to watch and direct. But these two had come to their first clash of wills, and her husband had little liking for such firm defiance of his wishes. Well she knew the little weather-signs in his face. When his eyebrows took just that tilt, and when the nostrils were drawn in and quivered with his breathing, then was it wise that she should remain by his side. The señora knew well that words are never so harsh between the male of our species when their women are beside them. So, suffering mental torment because of the careless peonas, she, nevertheless, sent Teresita after the fine, linen apron from which she meant to remove a whole two inches of woof for the new pattern of drawnwork which the Donna Lucia had sent her. She would remain as a buffer between these two whose eyes were too hard when they looked at each other. "It seems a pity that young men nowadays cannot contain themselves without quarreling," sighed the señora, acting upon the theory that anger is most dangerous when it is silent, and so giving the conversational ball a push. "Is there no way, Señor, in which you might avert this trouble? Truly it saddens me to think of it, for José has been as my own son. His mother and I were as twin sisters, Señor, and his mother prayed me to watch over him when she had gone. 'Sí, madre mia' would he tell me, when I gave him the good counsel. And now he comes no more, and he wants to fight the duelo! Is there no way, Señor?" The hardness left Jack's lips but not his eyes, while he looked from her to the don, smoking imperturbably his cigar beside her. "There is no way, Señora, except for a coward. I have done what I could; I know that José's skill is great with riatas, and the choice was mine. I might have said pistols," he reminded her gently, but with meaning. The plump hands of the señora went betrayingly into the air and her earrings tinkled with the horror that shook her cushiony person. "Not pistols! No, no--for then José would surely be killed! Gracias, Señor! With riatas my José can surely give good account of himself. Three times has he won the medalla oro in fair contest. He is a wizard with the rawhide. Myself, I have wept with pride to see him throw it at the fiestas--" "Mother mine, Margarita would have you come at once," the señorita interrupted her. "Little Francisco has burned his legs with hot water, and Margarita thinks that your poultice--" With twittering exclamations of dismay over the, accident the two women hurried away to minister to the burned legs of Francisco, and Jack rose and flung away his cigarette. His mouth had again the stubborn look which Dade knew so well, and dreaded also.