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a field servant brought to the house in the days of the great rancheros.
    He shook his head, giving her a pleasant smile for reassurance. “No, small one, I have pockets full of cigarettes.” He turned back to the door but she moved more softly and more quickly than he, and again she stood in front of him, blocking his path.
    “You do not go? Your dinner, it is ready.”
    She hadn’t asked if he were going; she’d said he wasn’t going. Her interception wasn’t accidental. Again his eyes swiftly circled the room. But there wasn’t anyone paying attention to him. Beach and Adam were still occupied; Beach by now had moved over to the table of the girl with the husband or father or rich patron. Beach was getting along swell. Adam was having a drink with Carlsbad.
    Jose returned his attention to the girl. She hadn’t budged. There was no more expression to her face than to the face of an Aztec carved in stone. Somehow she knew about him, and although it was incomprehensible, knew what he was about. Whether she belonged to the seersucker man or to Dulcinda Farrar or to Praxiteles or to a yet unknown didn’t bother him particularly. What did was that she was wasting his time, and he hadn’t much time to pull this stunt.
    He leaned closer to her and invented. “There is a beautiful lady I must see for a moment, and alone.” Romance should be the best appeal to a thin, young girl who so far could have known nothing but dreams. He indicated his companions. “They must not know or they too would wish to see this beautiful lady of whom I have spoken and I would be unable to whisper to her the words in my heart. For there are men who laugh at the anguish of love—”
    She was listening to him. Whether she was believing him was something else again. But if she was in on the other business, her knowledge would be slight. She was too young to be trusted with conspiracy; she wouldn’t be told why she was to detain him. It was up to him to sow doubts that he was the man she had been asked to watch for, this caballero with love, not intrigue, in his heart.
    He spoke rapidly. “If my friends inquire, I will be back so soon. They must wait for me. You understand, they must wait for me. But say nothing unless they inquire or unless they would go.” He set her aside, his hand on her thin shoulder, a shoulder deeper brown than that of the other girls here. She was not of Spanish roots as were the others, hers were more ancient in this country. What was Spanish in her would have been by right of conquest a brief three centuries ago. The conqueror blood, despised and hated, burned out in smoldering centuries, until there remained a breed more pure for its defilement.
    In no way did she give indication that she accepted what he said. She had been bred by countless ancestors to wear the stone mask. She might be thinking, “These crazy Norte Americanos are crazy.” She might be thinking, “I spit on this man whose fathers brought blood and fire to mine.” She might even be wishing she were the beautiful lady he was going to meet, or she might be wishing he’d buy a pack of cigarettes. But her face, including the polished black eyes, was blank.
    He stopped thinking about her as soon as he stepped into the pink glow of the patio. The oleanders patterned the flagstones, the lanterns quivered in the motionless heat of the night, but he shied at no shadows. There was no one visible in the patio and he crossed it swiftly and silently. As he reached the gate, he remembered the jangling its movement set up. He could have scaled the wall, it was rough adobe, but there was no necessity for such antics. He was permitted to come and go from the cafe as he desired; he was an American tourist who visited Juarez as did any tourist, to glimpse a foreign land.
    The Mexican police were very careful that the North Americans should be safe here. The men of business of Juarez would permit no incident which might upset the flow of dollars. If there were