Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/169

 that caused him to quicken his steps far more eagerly than concern for the horse: the thought of Tula Sinova, her fair head bent over a square of snowy linen, her delicate fingers drawing out long threads, working a design of airy, exquisite beauty, while her little charges drove clumsy needles in the lesson of the day.

That was not a sight for the lewd eyes of a Comisionado Felix to behold; not a picture, framed by the broad, low door, for Sebastian Alvitre to lick his lips over like a wolf outside the lambs' corral. Tula would be in the big room adjoining the dining-hall with her class of young women and girls at that hour, fresh as a bramble-rose on the trellis by the fountain, her eyes bent down upon her work, sitting near the door that opened into the court. These men from the dusty pueblo must not profane her with their eyes.