"You will step on a bunch of nettles in a moment," he said,
practically. "Your slippers are very thin; you had better stand over
here on the path." And he dexterously separated her from the other
men. "Will you walk to that opening over there with me? I want to show
you a better view of Monterey."

His manner had not a touch of gallantry, and she was tired of the
caballeros.

"Very well," she said. "I will look at the view."

As she followed him she noted that he led her where the bushes were
thinnest, and kicked the stones from her path. She also remarked the
nervous energy of his thin figure. "It comes from his love of the
Americans," she thought, angrily. "He must even walk like them. The
Americans!" And she brought her teeth together with a sharp click.

He turned, smiling. "You look very disapproving," he said. "What have
I done?"

"You look like an American! You even wear their clothes, and they are
the color of smoke; and you wear no lace. How cold and uninteresting a
scene would this be if all the men were dressed as you are!"

"We cannot all be made for decorative purposes. And you are as unlike
those girls, in all but your dress, as I am unlike the men. I will not
incur your wrath by saying that you are American: but you are modern.
Our lovely compatriots were the same three hundred years ago. Will
Doña California be pleased to observe that whale spouting in the bay?
There is the tree beneath which Junipero Serra said his first mass in