"Do as you please." Nevertheless, half an hour later, as he was leaving, she said, with a certain hesitating timidity, "Do not leave me so much alone here, and let that woman go." This was not the only unlooked-for sequel to her innocent desire to propitiate her best friends.

Don Jose did not call again upon his usual day, but in his place came Dona Clara, his younger sister.

When Mrs.
Tucker had politely asked after the absent Don Jose, Dona Clara wound her swarthy arms around the fair American's waist and replied, "But why did you send for the abogado Poindexter when my brother called ?" "But Captain Poindexter calls as one of my friends," said the amazed Mrs.Tucker.

"He is a gentleman, and has been a soldier and an officer," she added with some warmth.
"Ah, yes, a soldier of the law, what you call an oficial de policia, a chief of gendarmes, my sister, but not a gentleman--a camarero to protect a lady." Mrs.Tucker would have uttered a hasty reply, but the perfect and good-natured simplicity of Dona Clara withheld her.

Nevertheless, she treated Don Jose with a certain reserve at their next meeting, until it brought the simple-minded Castilian so dangerously near the point of demanding an explanation which implied too much that she was obliged to restore him temporarily to his old footing.