Now if Paul lacked wit to analyze and apply to his own government a moral law that has evolved from the painful travail of the generations, it does not follow that he was too stupid to feel irony. Reddening, he put forth the usual declaimer of honorable intention with the glib tongue of passion. He meant well by the girl! Would give her a good home, find her better than she had ever been found in her life! As for marrying? He was not of the marrying kind! Never would! and so on, finishing with a vital question--did Bachelder know where she lived? His color deepened under the artist's sarcastic glance. "So that's what you're after? I wondered why you picked me for a father confessor. Well, I don't, but you won't have any trouble in finding her. All the women sell something; she's sure to be on the market in the morning. You will get her quite easily. The girls seem to take pride in keeping a Gringo's house--I don't know why, unless it be that they are so dazzled by the things we have that they cannot see us for what we are." * * * * * A thousand crimson figures were weaving in and out the market's chrome pillars when Paul entered next morning, but though it was hard to single one person from the red confusion, luck led him almost immediately to where Andrea stood, a basket of tortillas at her feet. Lacking customers, just then, she leaned against a pillar, her scarlet flaming against its chrome, thoughtful, pensive, as Bachelder painted her for "The Enganchada," the girl sold for debt. Her shawl lay beside her basket, so her hair, that had flown loose since the morning bath, fell in a cataract over the polished amplitudes of bosom and shoulders. Save when feeling shot them with tawny flashes--as waving branches filter mottled sunlight on brown waters--her eyes were dark as the pools of Lethe, wherein men plunge and forget the past. They brought forgetfulness to Paul of his moral tradition, racial pride, the carefully conned apology which he did not remember until, an hour later, he fed her entire stock in trade to his dog. It was better so. Black, brown or white women are alike sensitive to the language of flowers, and the lilies he left in her basket served him more sweetly than could his stammering tongue. Next morning, curiosity replaced hostility in her glance, and when he left the market, her brown gaze followed him beyond the portals. Needs not, however, to linger over the courtship. Sufficient that color of skin does not affect the feminine trait that forgiveness comes easier when the offense was provoked by one's own beauty; the story goes on from the time that Andrea moved into his house with a stock of household gear that extorted musical exclamations from all her girl friends.