He was in the act of picking the torn fragments of his sombrero from the
dust. It had probably come in contact with the giant's spurs as they
wrestled, for the crown was literally ripped to tatters. And when its
owner beat out the dirt and placed the hat on his head, the fiery hair
was still visible through the rents. Yet he was not downhearted, it
seemed. He leaned jauntily against a hitching post under her window and
rolled a cigarette, quite withdrawn from the crowd which was working
over his victim.
Marianne began to feel that all she had seen was an ordinary chapter in
his life; yet in the mere crossing of that street he had lost his spurs
on a bet; saved a youngster from death at the risk of his own head,
battled with a monster and now rolled a cigarette cheerily complacent.
If fifty feet of his life made such a story what must a year of it be?
As though he felt her wonder above him, he raised his head in the act of
lighting his cigarette and Marianne was looking down into bright,
whimsical blue eyes. She was utterly unconscious of it at the moment but
at the sight of that happy face and all the dust-dimmed finery of the
cavalier, Marianne involuntarily smiled.
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