The lady laughed, and said that it might be so.

"It is not that you are English," the innkeeper continued, with easy
volubility. "For I know you belong to no other nation. I said so
to myself the moment I saw you, riding up here on horseback alone.
I called upstairs to Juanita that there was an English Senorita
coming on a horse, and Juanita replied with a malediction, that I
should raise my voice when the nino was asleep. She said that if it
was the Pope of Rome who came on a horse he must not wake the child.
'No,' I answered, 'but he would have to go upstairs to see it;' and
Juanita did not laugh. She sees no cause to laugh at anything
connected with the nino--oh, no! it is a serious matter."

He was looking towards the house as he spoke.

"Juanita is your wife?" said the Englishwoman.

"Yes. We have been married a year, and I am still sure that she is
the most beautiful woman in the world. Is it not wonderful? And
she will be jealous if she hears me talking all this while with the
Senorita."

"You can tell her that the Senorita has grey hair," said Miss
Cheyne, practically.

"That may be," said the innkeeper, looking at her with his head on
one side, and a gravely critical air. "But you still have the air"-
-he shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his hands--"the air that
takes a man's fancy. Who knows?"