The Doomswoman Part 12

"You are a little tired," he said, in a low voice. "Your color has gone, and the shadows are coming about your eyes."

The suspicion was borne home to her that he must have observed her closely to detect those shades of difference which no one else had noted.

"A little, senor. I went to bed late and rose early. Such times as these tax the endurance. But after a siesta I shall be refreshed."

"You look strong and very healthy."

"Ay, but I am! I am not delicate at all. I can ride all day, and swim--which few of our women do. I even like to walk; and I can dance every night for a week. Only, this is an unusual time."

Her supple elastic figure and healthy whiteness of skin betokened endurance and vitality, and he looked at her with pleasure. "Yes, you are strong," he said. "You look as if you would _last_,--as if you never would grow brown nor stout."

"What difference, if the next generation be beautiful?" she said, lightly. "Look at Don Juan de la Borrasca. See him gaze upon Panchita Lopez, who is just sixteen. What does he care that the women of his day are coffee-colored and stringy or fat? You will care as little when you too are brown and dried up, afraid to eat dulces, and each month seeking a new parting for your hair."

"You are a hopeful seer! But you--are you resigned to the time when even the withered old beau will not look at you,--you who are the loveliest woman in the Californias?"

It was the first compliment he had paid her, and she looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her eyes again. "With truth, I never imagine myself except as I am now; but I should have always my books, and no husband to teach me that there were other women more fair."

"And books will suffice, then?"

"Sure." She said it a little wistfully. Then she added, abruptly, "I shall go to confession this week."

"Ah!"

"Yes; for although I hate you still--that is, I do not like you--I have forgiven you. I believe you to be kind and generous, although the enemy of my brother; that if you did oppose him and cast him into prison, you did so with a loyal motive; you cannot help making mistakes, for you are but human. And I do not forget that if it were not for you he would not be a bridegroom to-day. Also, you are not responsible for being an Estenega; so, although I do not forgive the blood in you,--how could I, and be worthy to bear the name of Iturbi y Moncada?--I forgive you, yourself, for being what you cannot help, and for what you have unwittingly and mistakenly done. Do you understand?"

"I understand. Your subtleties are magnificent."

"You must not laugh at me. Tell me, how do you like my friend Valencia?"

"Well enough. I want to hear more about your confession. You fall back into the bosom of your Church with joy, I suppose?"

"Ay!"

"And you would never disobey one of her mandates?"

"Holy G.o.d! no."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I am a Catholic."

"That is not what I asked you. Why are you a Catholic? if I must make myself more plain. Why are you afraid to disobey? Why do you cling to the Church with your back braced against your intelligence? It is hope of future reward, I suppose,--or fear?"

"Sure. I want to go to the heaven of the good Catholic."

"Do not waste this life, particularly the youth of it, preparing for a legendary hereafter. Granting, for the sake of argument, that this existence is supplemented by another: you have no knowledge of what elements you will be composed when you lay aside your mortal part to enter there. Your power of enjoyment may be very thin indeed, like the music of a band without bra.s.s; the sort of happiness one can imagine a human being to experience out of whose anatomy the nervous system has by some surgical triumph been removed, and in whom love of the arts alone exists, abnormally cultivated. But one thing we of earth do know; you do not, but I will tell you; we have a slight capacity for happiness and a large capacity for enjoyment. There is not much in life, G.o.d knows, but there is something. One can get a reasonable amount out of it with due exercise of philosophy. Of that we are sure.

Of what comes after we are absolutely unsure."

She had endeavored to interrupt him once or twice, and did so now, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "Are you an atheist?" she demanded, abruptly. "Are you not a Catholic?"

"I am neither an atheist nor a Catholic. The question of religion has no interest for me whatever. I wish it had none for you."

She looked at him sternly. For a moment I thought the Doomswoman would annihilate the renegade. But her face softened suddenly. "I will pray for you," she said, and turned to the man at her right.

Estenega's face turned the chalky hue I always dreaded, and he bent his lips to her ear.

"Pray for me many times a day; and at other times recall what I said about the relative value of possible and improbable heavens. You are a woman who thinks."

"Don Diego," exclaimed Valencia, unable to control her impatience longer, and turning sharply from the caballero who was talking to her in a fiery undertone, "thou hast not spoken to me for ten minutes."

"For ten hours, senorita. Thou hast treated me with the scorn and indifference of one weary of homage."

She blushed with gratification. "It is thou who hast forgotten me."

"Would that I could!"

"Dost thou wish to?"

"When I am away from thee, or thou talkest to other men,--sure."

"It is thy fault if I talk to other men."

"You make me feel the Good Samaritan."

"But I care not to talk to them."

"Thy heart is a comb of honey, senorita. On my knees I accept the little morsel the queen bee--thy swift messenger--brings me. Truly, never was sweet so sweetly sweet."

"It is thou who hast the honey on thy tongue, although I fear there may be a stone in thy heart."

"Ah! Why? No stone could sit so lightly in my breast as my heart when those red lips smile to me."

Chonita listened to this conversation with mingled amazement and anger. She did not doubt Estenega's sincerity to herself; neither did Valencia appear to doubt him. But his present levity was manifest to her. Why should he care to talk so to another woman? How strange were men! She gave up the problem.

After the long banquet concluded, the cavalcade formed once more, and we returned to the town. Prudencia rode her white horse alone this time, her husband beside her. Leading the cavalcade was the Presidio band. Its members wore red jackets trimmed with yellow cord, Turkish trousers of white wool, and red Polish caps. With their music mingled the regular detonations of the Presidio cannon. After we had wound the length of the valley we made a progress through the town for the benefit of the populace, who ran to the corridors to watch us, and shouted with delight. But the sun was hot, and we were all glad to be between the thick adobe walls once more.

We took a long siesta that day, but hours before dark the populace was crowded in the court-yard under the booth which had been erected during the afternoon. After the early supper the guests of Casa Grande, and our neighbors of the town, filled the sala, the large bare rooms adjoining, and the corridors. The old people of both degrees seated themselves in rows against the wall, the fiddles sc.r.a.ped, the guitars tw.a.n.ged, the flutes cooed, and the dancing began.

In the court-yard a small s.p.a.ce was cleared, and changing couples danced El Jarabe and La Jota,--two stately jigs,--whilst the spectators applauded with wild and impartial enthusiasm, and Don Guillermo from the corridor threw silver coins at the dancers' feet.

Now and again a pretty girl would dance alone, her gay skirt lifted with the tips of her fingers, her eyes fixed upon the ground. A man would approach from behind and place his hat on her head. Perhaps she would toss it saucily aside, perhaps let it rest on her coquettish braids,--a token that its owner was her accepted gallant for the evening.

Above, the slender men and women of the aristocracy, the former in black and white, the latter in gowns of vivid richness, danced the contradanza, the most graceful dance I have ever seen; and since those Californian days I have lived in almost every capital of Europe.

The music is so monotonous and sweet, the figures so melting and harmonious, that to both spectator and dancer comes a dreaming languid contentment, as were the senses swimming on the brink of sleep.

Chonita and Valencia were famous rivals in its rendering, always the sala-stars to those not dancing. Valencia was the perfection of grace, but it was the grace now of the snake, again of the cat. She suggested fangs and claws, a repressed propensity to sudden leaps. Chonita's grace was that of rhythmical music imprisoned in a woman's form of proportions so perfect that she seemed to dissolve from one figure into another, swaying, bending, gliding. The soul of grace emanated from her, too evanescent to be seen, but felt as one feels perfume or the something that is not color in the heart of a rose. Her star-like eyes were open, but the brain behind them was half asleep: she danced by instinct.

I was watching the dancing of these two,--the poetry of promise and the poetry of death,--when suddenly Don Guillermo entered the room, stamped his foot, pulled out his rosary, and instantly we all went down on our knees. It was eight of the clock, and this ceremony was never omitted in Casa Grande, be the occasion festive or domestic.

When we had told our beads, Don Guillermo rose, put his rosary in his pocket, trotted out, and the dancing was resumed.