The ranch is mine, and I am an American."
There was a pause. The General made a visible effort to gather his
wits. It was now quite patent that the sight of Alaire, the sound
of her voice, her first glance, had stricken him with an odd semi-
paralysis. As if to shut out a vision or to escape some dazzling
sight, he dosed his eyes. Alaire wondered if the fellow had been
drinking. She turned to Dolores to find that good woman wearing an
expression of stupefaction. It was very queer; it made Alaire
extremely ill at ease.
Longorio opened his eyes and smiled. "It seems that I have seen
you before--as if we were old friends--or as if I had come face to
face with myself," said he. "I am affected strangely. It is
unaccountable. I know you well--completely--everything about you
is familiar to me, and yet we meet for the first time, eh? How do
you explain that, unless a miracle--"
"It is merely your imagination."
"Such beauty--here among these common people! I was unprepared."
Longorio passed a brown hand across his brow to brush away those
perverse fancies that so interfered with his thoughts.
In moments of stress the attention often centers upon trivial
things and the mind photographs unimportant objects.
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