flashing.

"Traitor!" she articulated. "I hate you! And it was you--_you_--who
kept my loyal brother from serving his country in the Departmental
Junta. He is as full of fire and patriotism as Castro; and yet you,
whose blood is ice, could be a member of the Electoral College and
defeat the election of a man who is as much an honor to his country as
you are a shame."

He smiled a little cruelly, but without anger or shame in his face.
"Señorita," he said, "I defeated your brother because I did not
believe him to be of any use to his country. He would only have been
in the way as a member of the Junta, and an older man wanted the
place. Your brother has Don José's enthusiasm without his magnetism
and remarkable executive power. He is too young to have had
experience, and has done neither reading nor thinking. Therefore I
did my best to defeat him. Pardon my rudeness, señorita; ascribe it to
revenge for calling me a traitor."

"You--you----" she stammered, then bent her head over her plate,
her Spanish dignity aghast at the threatening tears. Her hand hung
clinched at her side. Diego took it in spite of resistance, and,
opening the rigid fingers, bent his head beneath the board and kissed
them.

"I believe you are somewhat of a woman, after all," he said.