"Don't mind them," he whispered; "you really cannot expect to duena
your elder sister. Tell me, would you actually like me to see if I
could assist the virtuous tramp? You have only to speak." But
Amita's interest appeared to be so completely appeased with
Raymond's simple offer that she only smiled, blushed, and said
"No."
Maruja's quick ears had taken in every word of these asides, and
for an instant she hated her sister for her aimless declination of
Raymond's proposal. But becoming conscious--under her eyelids--
that the stranger was moving away with the dispersing crowd, she
rejoined Amita with her usual manner. The others had re-entered
the carriage, but Maruja took it into her head to proceed on foot
to the rude building whence the mourners had issued. The foreman,
Harrison, flushed and startled by this apparition of inaccessible
beauty at his threshold, came eagerly forward. "I shall not
trouble you now, Mr. Har-r-r-rison," she said, with a polite
exaggeration of the consonants; "but some day I shall ride over
here, and ask you to show me your wonderful machines."
She smiled, and turned back to seek her carriage. But before she
had gone many yards she found that she had completely lost it in
the intervening billows of grain. She stopped, with an impatient
little Spanish ejaculation. The next moment the stalks of wheat
parted before her and a figure emerged. It was the stranger.
She fell back a step in utter helplessness.
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