Nothing could be further from the mark than to say that Will tried
to take advantage of Maga's youth and savagery. Fred and I had shared
a dozen lively adventures with him without more than beginning yet
to plumb the depths of his respect for Woman. Only an American in
all the world knows how to meet Young Woman eye to eye with totally
unpatronizing frankness, and he was without guile in the matter.
But not so she. We did not know whether or not she was Gregor Jhaere's
daughter; whether or not she was truly the gipsy that she hardly
seemed. But she was certainly daughter of the Near East that does
not understand a state of peace between the sexes. There was nothing
lawful in her attitude, nor as much as the suspicion that Will might
be merely chivalrous.

"America's due for sex-enlightenment!" said I.

"Warn him if you like," Fred laughed, "and then steer clear! Our
America is proud besides imprudent!"

Fred off-shouldered all responsibility and forestalled anxiety on
any one's account by playing tunes, stampeding the whole cavalcade
more than once because the horses were unused to his clanging concertina,
but producing such high spirits that it became a joke to have to
dismount in the mud and replace the load on some mule who had expressed
enjoyment of the tune by rolling in slime, or by trying to kick clouds
out of the sky.

And strangely enough he brought about the very last thing he intended
with his music--stopped the flirtation's immediate progress. Maga
seemed to take to Fred's unchastened harmony with all the wildness
that possessed her. Some chord he struck, or likelier, some abandoned