"True! True! What a good idea! Was it Benicia's?" He gave her a glance of languid adoration. "I will buy those knives at once, before I forget it," and he tossed the sombrero on his curls and strode out of the house. "How dost thou like the Señor Lieutenant Russell, Benicia?" Benicia lifted her chin, but her cheeks became very pink. "Well enough. But he is like all the Americans, very proud, and thinks too well of his hateful country. But I shall teach him how to flirt. He thinks he can, but he cannot." "Thou canst do it, Benicia--look! look!" Lieutenant Russell and a brother officer were sauntering slowly by and looking straight through the grated window at the beautiful girls in their gayly flowered gowns. They saluted, and the girls bent their slender necks, but dared not speak, for Doña Francesca Hernandez was in the next room and the door was open. Immediately following the American officers came Don Fernando Altimira on horseback. He scowled as he saw the erect swinging figures of the conquerors, but Benicia kissed the tips of her fingers as he flung his sombrero to the ground, and he galloped, smiling, on his way. That night the officers of the United States squadron met the society of Monterey at the house of Don Jorje Hernandez. After the contradanza, to which they could be admiring spectators only, much to the delight of the caballeros, Benicia took the guitar presented by Flujencio, and letting her head droop a little to one side like a lily bent on its stalk by the breeze, sang the most coquettish song she knew. Her mahogany brown hair hung unconfined over her white shoulders and gown of embroidered silk with its pointed waist and full skirt. Her large brown eyes were alternately mischievous and tender, now and again lighted by a sudden flash. Her cheeks were pink; her round babylike arms curved with all the grace of the Spanish woman. As she finished the song she dropped her eyelids for a moment, then raised them slowly and looked straight at Russell. "By Jove, Ned, you are a lucky dog!" said a brother officer. "She's the prettiest girl in the room! Why don't you fling your hat at her feet, as these ardent Californians do?" [Illustration: "RUSSELL CROSSED THE ROOM AND SAT BESIDE BENICIA."] "My cap is in the next room, but I will go over and fling myself there instead." Russell crossed the room and sat down beside Benicia. "I should like to hear you sing under those cypresses out on the ocean about six or eight miles from here," he said to her. "I rode down the coast yesterday. Jove! what a coast it is!" "We will have a merienda there on some evening," said Doña Eustaquia, who sat beside her daughter. "It is very beautiful on the big rocks to watch the ocean, under the moonlight." "A merienda?" "A peek-neek." "Good! You will not forget that?" She smiled at his boyishness. "It will be at the next moon. I promise."