silly girl? He'll be a very wealthy man, with horses ga-
lore; and you'll have jewels and clothes and a fine house
and a lot of money to spend. Just imagine what a life
you would lead with him!"

Camilla stared up at the blue sky so he should not
read the expression in her eyes. A dead leaf shook slowly
loose from the crest of a tree swinging slowly on the
wind, fell like a small dead butterfly at her feet. She
bent down and took it in her fingers. Then, without look-
ing at him, she murmured:

"It's horrible to hear you talk like that. . . . I like
you . . . no one else. . . . Ah, well, go then, go: I feel
ashamed now. Please leave me!"

She threw away the leaf she had crumpled in her
hand and covered her face with a corner of her apron.
When she opened her eyes, Luis Cervantes had disap-
peared.

She followed the river trail. The river seemed to have
been sprinkled with a fine red dust. On its surface drifted
now a sky of variegated colors, now the dark crags,
half light, half shadow. Myriads of luminous insects
twinkled in a hollow. Camilla, standing on the beach of
washed, round stones, caught a reflection of herself in
the waters; she saw herself in her yellow blouse with the
green ribbons, her white skirt, her carefully combed hair,
her wide eyebrows and broad forehead, exactly as she