Читать книгу Chata and Chinita. A Novel онлайн

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As they disappeared, Chinita’s eyes followed them. She was not especially grateful for her escape: it was not the first time she had been snatched from beneath the feet of a restive horse; the incident was natural enough to her, and perhaps for this reason her rescuer was not specially interesting to her mind. Somewhat to her disgust, an hour later, when she had managed to steal unobserved into the supper-room, where she crouched in a corner, she saw Rosario and Chata from their seats at their mother’s side regarding the young officer with amiable smiles,—Rosario with infantile coquetry, drooping her long lashes demurely over her soft dreamy black eyes; and Chata, with her orbs of a nondescript gray, frankly though coyly taking in every detail of his face and dress, while they averted themselves as if startled or repelled from the dark countenance of his companion. It might have been thought that Doña Feliz shared her dread, for more than once she looked at the General with an expression of perplexity and aversion, as he lightly entertained Doña Rita with an account of his family and his own exploits,—topics strangely chosen for a Mexican, but which seemed natural rather than egotistical when lightly and wittily expatiated upon by this gay soldier of fortune.