"I've got a real, genuine, all-wool-yard-wide beau." She leaned her elbows on the table, holding the fig to her mouth, her thin fingers manipulating the skin as she sucked the pulp. Her eyes were full of laughter. "What do you mean?" "Just what I'm telling you. You needn't look like I'd said he was a defaulting bank cashier, nor so surprised either. It ain't flattering to your only child." Her father did not respond to her gayety. "Look-a-here, Panchita," he began, but she stopped him, flapping a long hand. "Cut it out, Pop. I know all that. You needn't come any stern parent business over me. _I'm_ on. _I_ know my way about. I ain't going to run my head into any noose, or tie any millstone round my neck. Don't you think by this time you can trust me?" Her words seemed to reassure him. The bovine intensity of his gaze softened. "You've had a heap of beaux," he said moodily. "And kept every last one of 'em in their place, except for those I kicked out. And they got to their place; my kick landed them there." "Who is he?" Pancha returned to her fig, looking over its wilted skin for clinging tidbits. "Named Mayer, a foreigner--at least he's born here, but he looks foreign and acts foreign; hands out the kind of talk you read in books. Awful high class." "Treats you respectful?" She gave him a withering glance. "_Respectful!_ Treats me like I'd faint if he spoke rough or break if he touched me. I ain't ever seen anything so choice. You said I was thin--it's keeping up such a dignified style that's worn me down." This description was so unlike the bandit's idea of love-making that he became incredulous. "How do you know he's a beau? Looks like to me he was just marking time." She smiled, the secret smile of a woman who has seen the familiar signs. She had taken another fig and delicately breaking it open, eyed its crimson heart. "He's jealous." "Who of?" "Nobody, anybody, everybody." She began to laugh, and putting her lips to the fruit, sucked, and then drew them away stained with its ruby juice. "He's always trying to draw me, find out if there isn't somebody I like. Pop, you'd laugh if you could hear him sniffing round the subject like a cat round the cream." "What do you tell him?" "_Me?_" She gave him a scornful cast of her eye. Her face was flushed, and with her crimsoned mouth and shining eyes she was for the moment beautiful. "I got my pride. I told him the truth at first, and when he wouldn't believe me--'Oh, no, there _must be_ someone'--I says to myself, 'All right, deary, have it your own way,' and I jolly him along now," she laughed with joyous memory. "I got him good and guessing, Pop." The old man looked dissatisfied. "I ain't much stuck on this, Panchita. What good are you goin' to get out of it?"