The sala was on the second floor; the musicians sat on the corridor beyond the open windows and scraped their fiddles and twanged their guitars, awaiting the coming of the American officers. Before long the regular tramp of many feet turning from Alvarado Street up the little Primera del Este, facing Mr. Larkin's house, made dark eyes flash, lace and silken gowns flutter. Benicia and a group of girls were standing by Doña Eustaquia. They opened their large black fans as if to wave back the pink that had sprung to their cheeks. Only Benicia held her head saucily high, and her large brown eyes were full of defiant sparkles. "Why art thou so excited, Blandina?" she asked of a girl who had grasped her arm. "I feel as if the war between the United States and Mexico began tonight." "Ay, Benicia, thou hast so gay a spirit that nothing ever frightens thee! But, Mary! How many they are! They tramp as if they would go through the stair. Ay, the poor flag! No wonder--" "Now, do not cry over the flag any more. Ah! there is not one to compare with General Castro!" The character of the Californian sala had changed for ever; the blue and gold of the United States had invaded it. The officers, young and old, looked with much interest at the faces, soft, piquant, tropical, which made the effect of pansies looking inquisitively over a snowdrift. The girls returned their glances with approval, for they were as fine and manly a set of men as ever had faced death or woman. Ten minutes later California and the United States were flirting outrageously. Mr. Larkin presented a tall officer to Benicia. That the young man was very well-looking even Benicia admitted. True, his hair was golden, but it was cut short, and bore no resemblance to the coat of a bear; his mustache and brows were brown; his gray eyes were as laughing as her own. "I suppose you do not speak any English, señorita," he said helplessly. "No? I spik Eenglish like the Spanish. The Spanish people no have difficult at all to learn the other langues. But Señor Hartnell he say it no is easy at all for the Eenglish to spik the French and the Spanish, so I suppose you no spik one word our langue, no?" He gallantly repressed a smile. "Thankfully I may say that I do not, else would I not have the pleasure of hearing you speak English. Never have I heard it so charmingly spoken before." Benicia took her skirt between the tips of her fingers and swayed her graceful body forward, as a tule bends in the wind. "You like dip the flag of the conqueror in honey, señor. Ay! We need have one compliment for every tear that fall since your eagle stab his beak in the neck de ours." "Ah, the loyal women of Monterey! I have no words to express my admiration for them, señorita. A thousand compliments are not worth one tear." Benicia turned swiftly to her mother, her eyes glittering with pleasure. "Mother, you hear! You hear!" she cried in Spanish. "These Americans are not so bad, after all."