Agueda's thoughts sped with the rapidity that reminiscence brings, and as she placed some rounds of cassava bread in the basket she saw her mother doing the same, as if it were but yesterday, and saying between halting breaths:
"Never trust a gentleman--Agueda--marry some--plain, honest--man--a man of--our people, Agueda--but do not--trust--"
"Who are our people, mother?" the girl had interrupted.
Nada had not answered. She had lain her thin arms round Agueda's unformed shoulders, turned the girl's head backward with the other hand laid upon her brow, and gazed steadily into the good grey eyes.
"My little Agueda," she had said--stopped short, and sighed. It was hopeless. There was no escape from the burden of inheritance. Agueda had not understood the cause of her mother's sigh and her halting words. She had been ill to death--that she knew. Then came long years of patience, as Agueda grew to girlhood. Could it be only six months ago that she had lost her?
"My sweet Nada," she whispered, as she laid a napkin over the contents of the basket, "I do not know what you meant, but I do not forget you, Nada."
"Hasten, Agueda! There is no danger, but there is no need of getting a wetting."
Agueda turned to see Don Beltran standing in the doorway of the comidor. He was smiling. His face looked brown and healthful against the worn blue of the old painted door. His white trousers were tucked within the tops of his high boots, and he wore a belt of tanned leather, with the usual accompaniment of a pistol-holder, which was empty, the belt forming a strap for a machete, and holding safely that useful weapon of domesticity or menace. His fine striped shirt hung in loose folds partly over the belt; the collar, broad, and turned down from the brown throat, being held carelessly in place by a flowing coloured tie. He had an old Panama hat in his brown hand. His wavy hair swept back from his forehead, crisp and changeable in its dark gold lights. His brown eyes looked kindly at the girl, but more particularly at the basket which she filled.
"Have you some glasses?" he asked, "and some--"
"Water, Señor? Yes, I have not forgotten that."
"I fancy that we shall have water enough, 'Gueda, child. Get my flask and fill it with rum. The pink rum of the vega. Here, let me get the demijohn. Run for the flask, child. Perhaps I should have listened to the warning of old Emperatriz."