your grace!"
he cheerfully repeated--so cheerfully that Manvers was appeased.

"Good-day, good-day to you," he said. "You ride light and I ride
heavy, otherwise you had not overtaken us."

Esteban showed his fine teeth, and waved his hand towards the hazy
distance; from the tail of his eye he watched Manuela in profile. "Who
knows that, sir? _Lo que ha de ser_--as we say. Ah, who knows that?"
Manuela strained her face forward.

"Well," said Manvers, "I do, for example. I have proved my horse.
He's a Galician, and a good goer. It would want a brave _borico_ to
outpace him."

Esteban slipped into the axiomatic, as all Spaniards will. "There's a
providence of the road, sir, and a saint in charge of travellers. And
we know, sir, _a cada puerco viene su San Martin_." Manuela stooped
her body forward, and peered ahead, as one strains to see in the dark.

"Your proverb is oddly chosen, it seems to me," said Manvers.

Esteban gave a little chuckle from his throat.

"A proverb is a stone flung into a pack of starlings. It may scare the
most, but may hit one. By mine I referred to the ways of providence,
under a figure. Destiny is always at work."

"No doubt," said Manvers, slightly bored.

"It might have been your destiny to have outpaced me: the odds were
with you. On the other hand, as you have not, it must have been mine
to have overtaken you."

"You are a philosopher?" asked Manvers, fatigue deliberately in his
voice. Esteban's eyes shone intensely; he had marked the changed
inflection.

"I studied the Humanities at Salamanca," he said carelessly. "That was
when I was an innocent. Since then I have learned in a harder school.
I am learning still--every day I learn something new. I am a gentleman
born, as your grace has perceived: why not a philosopher?"

Manvers was rather ashamed of himself. "Of course, of course! Why not
indeed? I am very glad to see you, while our ways coincide."

Esteban raised his battered straw. "I kiss the feet of your grace, and
hope your grace's lady"--Manuela quivered--"is not disturbed by my
company; for to tell you the truth, sir, I propose to enjoy your own as
long as you and she are agreeable. I am used to companionship." He
shot a keen glance at Manuela, who never moved.

"She will speak for herself, no doubt," said Manvers; but she did not.
The gleam in Esteban's light eyes gave point to his next speech.

"I have a notion that the senora is not of you