Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/175

 primrose. There was a little spray of fragrant jasmine blossoms in her rippling hair above her ear. Her head was bent slightly over the work upon which her hands lay idle; one sandalled foot was thrust out a little, as if it started toward the open door to follow her dreams away. She was pensive, and seemed oppressed; there was a shadow in her cheek as of a face that sorrow had held between its hands.

Juan had stopped a little way beyond the door, his feet quiet on the dusty earth that bordered the tile-paved path. He knew that Doña Magdalena was watching him, and laughing at his timid heart. Gertrudis seemed to feel his shadow in the path, as one feels a cloud before closed eyes. He removed his low-crowned hat as she turned her face, greeting him with a smile.

It might have been a Castilian gentleman from the very shadow of the Alhambra whom she beheld standing between her and the fountain, the sun glinting in his bright hair, striking in little metallic gleams as she had seen it glint and glisten in the sands of Santa Monica, wet in the racing seas. The tailor of San Fernando had done credit to his craft and justice to the frame of his customer. Padre Mateo had seen to that. Denied the pleasure of fine raiment himself, the honest padre had no small enjoyment in the example of elegance and grace that this adopted son of the mission presented.

Juan's limbs carried the garments of a strange race with gentlemanly ease that was equaled only by