The padre stood back a little from Shere and stared. Then he said
slyly, and with the air of one who quotes:

"All women are born tricksters."

"Those were rank words," said Shere composedly.

"Yet they were often spoken when you grew vines in the Ronda Valley."

"Then a crowd of men must know me for a fool. A young man may make a
mistake, padre, and exaggerate a disappointment. Besides, I had not
then seen the señora. Esteban I knew, but she was a child, and known
to me only by name." And then, warmed by the pleasure in his old
friend's face, he said, "I will tell you about it."

They walked on slowly side by side, while Shere, who now that he had
begun to confide was quite swept away, bent over his saddle and told
how after inheriting a modest fortune, after wandering for three years
from city to city, he had at last come to Paris, and there, at a
Carlist conversazione, had heard the familiar name called from a
doorway, and had seen the unfamiliar face appear. Shere described
Christina. She walked with the grace of a deer, as though the floor
beneath her foot had the spring of turf. The blood was bright in her
face; her brown hair shone; she was sweet with youth; the suppleness
of her body showed it and the steadiness of her great clear eyes.

"She passed me," he went on, "and the arrogance of what I used to
think and say came sharp home to me like a pain. I suppose that
I stared--it was an accident, of course--perhaps my face showed
something of my trouble; but just as she was opposite me her fan