"Thou wilt, my Eustaquia. Doña Chonita is no pudding-brained girl. She
needs no dueña."

"I know that; but it is not that I am thinking of. Suppose some one
sees you; thou knowest the inflexibility of our conventions."

"You forget that we are _comadre_ and _compadre_. Our privileges
are many." He abruptly dismissed the intimate "thou," with his usual
American perversity.

"True; I had forgotten. But whither is all this tending, Diego? She
neither will nor can marry you."

"She both can and will. Will you help me, or not? Because if not I
shall proceed without you. Only you can make it easier."

I always gave way to him; everybody did.

He was as good as his word. How he managed, Chonita never knew, but
not a half-hour after dinner she found herself alone in the canon with
him, seated among the huge stones cataclysms had hurled there.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked.

"To talk with you."

"But this would be severely censured."

"Do you care?"