haw!" laughed Bessie, also rising and shaking the dust from her
skirt. "You've scarcely talked of anything else since we left home. Why,
I really believe you are beginning to be jealous of this creature of
your imagination. It's too absurd to suppose that Jack--"

"Is it any more impossible than the people and things we have just
encountered?"

"Nonsense! Jack in love with some half-breed--that dusky beauty in
breeches who rides astride, and whom he happened to mention to us? It's
preposterous!"

"My dear," resumed Blanch calmly, "don't deceive yourself. My woman's
intuition tells me that I'm right. Jack's notion of beginning a new life
is all nonsense--there's a deeper reason than that for this change in
him. Take my word for it, there's a woman at the bottom of it for what
possible attraction could this horrid country and its people have for a
civilized being?"

"I can't believe it," answered Bessie; "you know how fastidious Jack is.
Besides it was only a fleeting glance that he caught of the woman he
mentioned--and that in the twilight."

"A glance is quite enough for a fool to fall in love with a phantom,"
retorted Blanch warmly, thrusting the ground vigorously with the point
of her sunshade.

"They say," she went on, "that these dark beauties of the South possess
a peculiar fascination of their own--that they have a way of captivating
men before they realize what's happening. They sort of hypnotize them,
you know."

"But not a man of Jack's type!"

"Oh, I don't mean to infer that she's beautiful," continued Blanch.
"Attractive she may be, but how could anything so common be really
beautiful? It's not that which worries me--it's the state of his mind.
He has evidently reached a crisis. As long as I can keep him in sight
he's safe, but should he be left here alone with one of these women in
his present frame of mind, there's no knowing what might happen. Any
woman if fairly attractive and a schemer, can marry almost any man she
has a mind to. You know," she added, "he's not given to talking without
a purpose and usually acts even though he lives to repent of it
afterwards. Why, if he were left here, he might marry from _ennui_, who
knows? One hears of such things."

"Heavens!" ejaculated Bessie, "it makes one shudder to think of it!
Hush!" she added, nodding in the direction of the house where the
Captain appeared in the doorway and halted, regarding them with a mixed
expression of curiosity and amusement