第51章 CHAPTER X.(2)

Grant rose instantly with a white face."You will have a better opportunity of judging,"he said,"when Colonel Starbottle has the honor of waiting upon you from me.Meantime,I thank you for reminding me of the indiscretion into which my folly,in still believing that this thing could be settled amicably,has led me."He bowed coldly and withdrew.Nevertheless,as he mounted his horse and rode away,he felt his cheeks burning.Yet he had acted upon calm consideration;he knew that to the ordinary Californian experience there was nothing quixotic nor exaggerated in the attitude he had taken.Men had quarreled and fought on less grounds;he had even half convinced himself that he HAD been insulted,and that his own professional reputation demanded the withdrawal of the attack on Harcourt on purely business grounds;but he was not satisfied of the personal responsibility of Fletcher nor of his gratuitous malignity.Nor did the man look like a tool in the hands of some unscrupulous and hidden enemy.However,he had played his card.If he succeeded only in provoking a duel with Fletcher,he at least would divert the public attention from Harcourt to himself.He knew that his superior position would throw the lesser victim in the background.He would make the sacrifice;that was his duty as a gentleman,even if SHE would not care to accept it as an earnest of his unselfish love!

He had reached the point where the mountain track entered the Santa Clara turnpike when his attention was attracted by a handsome but old-fashioned carriage drawn by four white mules,which passed down the road before him and turned suddenly off into a private road.

But it was not this picturesque gala equipage of some local Spanish grandee that brought a thrill to his nerves and a flash to his eye;it was the unmistakable,tall,elegant figure and handsome profile of Clementina,reclining in light gauzy wraps against the back seat!It was no fanciful resemblance,the outcome of his reverie,--there never was any one like her!--it WAS she herself!But what was she doing here?

A vaquero cantered from the cross road where the dust of the vehicle still hung.Grant hailed him.Ah!it was a fine carroza de cuatro mulas that he had just passed!Si,Senor,truly;it was of Don Jose Ramirez,who lived just under the hill.It was bringing company to the casa.

Ramirez!That was where Fletcher was going!Had Clementina known that he was one of Fletcher's friends?Might she not be exposed to unpleasantness,marked coolness,or even insult in that unexpected meeting?Ought she not to be warned or prepared for it?She had banished Grant from her presence until this stain was removed from her father's name,but could she blame him for trying to save her from contact with her father's slanderer?No!He turned his horse abruptly into the cross road and spurred forward in the direction of the casa.

It was quite visible now--a low-walled,quadrangular mass of whitewashed adobe lying like a drift on the green hillside.The carriage and four had far preceded him,and was already half up the winding road towards the house.Later he saw them reach the courtyard and disappear within.He would be quite in time to speak with her before she retired to change her dress.He would simply say that while making a professional visit to Los Gatos Land Company office he had become aware of Fletcher's connection with it,and accidentally of his intended visit to Ramirez.His chance meeting with the carriage on the highway had determined his course.

As he rode into the courtyard he observed that it was also approached by another road,evidently nearer Los Gatos,and probably the older and shorter communication between the two ranchos.The fact was significantly demonstrated a moment later.He had given his horse to a servant,sent in his card to Clementina,and had dropped listlessly on one of the benches of the gallery surrounding the patio,when a horseman rode briskly into the opposite gateway,and dismounted with a familiar air.A waiting peon who recognized him informed him that the Dona was engaged with a visitor,but that they were both returning to the gallery for chocolate in a moment.The stranger was the man he had left only an hour before--Don Diego Fletcher!

In an instant the idiotic fatuity of his position struck him fully.

His only excuse for following Clementina had been to warn her of the coming of this man who had just entered,and who would now meet her as quickly as himself.For a brief moment the idea of quietly slipping out to the corral,mounting his horse again,and flying from the rancho,crossed his mind;but the thought that he would be running away from the man he had just challenged,and perhaps some new hostility that had sprung up in his heart against him,compelled him to remain.The eyes of both men met;Fletcher's in half-wondering annoyance,Grant's in ill-concealed antagonism.

What they would have said is not known,for at that moment the voices of Clementina and Mrs.Ramirez were heard in the passage,and they both entered the gallery.The two men were standing together;it was impossible to see one without the other.

And yet Grant,whose eyes were instantly directed to Clementina,thought that she had noted neither.She remained for an instant standing in the doorway in the same self-possessed,coldly graceful pose he remembered she had taken on the platform at Tasajara.Her eyelids were slightly downcast,as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shy maiden sensitiveness;in her hesitation Mrs.Ramirez passed impatiently before her.