and ties to match, served the drinks, gliding deftly and noiselessly between the tables, answering the summons of their patrons or the shrill calls of the girls, giving the latter rubber discs for their percentage accounts.
The music ended and the musicians gathered about a table of their own for refreshment. Stone looked idly for the girl Lola but did not see her as he leisurely made the circuit of the courtyard. A lithe, tall man, unusually broad-shouldered for a Mexican, got up from the musicians' table and walked off with a swagger toward an opening between the buildings. His fellows shouted some jibe after him in Spanish, which Stone could not catch, and which the man answered with a cock of his head, setting one hand to his pliant hip as he strutted off, gracefully enough, and disappeared in the alley. Stone passed the place a moment later and, glancing down it, saw two figures at the far end, dark against a patch of starlit sky.
The two were apart. Then the taller made a quick movement and snatched the other toward him. There was a slight scream and Stone hesitated. He had no wish to interfere in any love affair but there had been a quality to the cry that was appealing. It was not the provocative protest of a girl who has expected the amorous attack, and it had been shut off sharply. It came again—rage and terror in it—and Stone leaped into the alley. He had swiftly remembered the talk of Castro about Padilla, the leader of the orchestra, and Castro's suggestive comment that the girl Lola should not resent that favourite's advances. It was none of his business.
