But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who
superciliously turned their backs upon it and the suggester. Joan
dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita. "And you
have never seen him since?"

"Never."

"I should--at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way," said Joan
in a positive whisper.

"Eh?" said Dona Rosita, laughing. "So eet is YOU, Juanita, that have the
romance--eh? Ah, bueno! 'you have the house--so I gif to you the lover
also.' I place him at your disposition." She made a mock gesture of
elaborate and complete abnegation. "But," she added in Joan's ear, with
a quick glance at Demorest, "do not let our hoosband eat him. Even now
he have the look to strangle ME. Make to him a little lof, quickly, when
I shall walk in the garden." She turned away with a pretty wave of her
fan to Demorest, and calling out, "I go to make an assignation with my
memory," laughed again, and lazily passed into the shadow. An ominous
silence on the veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs. Demorest.

"I don't think it was necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona
Rosita quite so plainly," she said, coldly, slightly accenting the
Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived in her
manner.

"I show dislike of Dona Rosita?" stammered Demorest, in surprise. "Come,
Joan," he added, with a forgiving smile, "you don't mean to imply that
I dislike her because I couldn't get up a thrilling interest in an old