Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/163

 and when she appeared before Ben he stared in round-eyed admiration.

"Gee!" he said, straggling for some appropriate expression. "Gee! you look like one of these here cactus flowers in spring."

Nan made a curtsy in appreciation of his compliment.

"You think," she asked archly, "that the Señorita Perfecta Torres will be only a dingy moth beside me?"

"She'll look like a horse-fly," Ben returned heartily, "alongside a butterfly."

Edith was silent. Her small moment of triumph was already a thing of the past. Ben never had told her that she looked like a flaming cactus flower in spring, or likened her to a butterfly.

All Las Rubertas was assembled in the rear of the Señor Apedaca's long dobe store building when Nan, Edith, Ben and Mrs. Gallagher arrived. A large space had been cleared of boxes and barrels, and the dirt floor well sprinkled to keep down the dust.

A platform had been built in the end of the room which the orchestra occupied, and the guests now sat on the benches ranged against