Chapter VIII: Part III (2)

She gave a little cry of agony and pleasure. He was standing by the gates of the corral whilst the vaqueros rounded up the cattle he had bought. His arms were folded, his head hung forward. As he heard her cry, he lifted his face, and Elena saw the tears in his eyes. For the moment they gazed at each other, those lovers of California's long-ago, while the very atmosphere quivering between them seemed a palpable barrier. Elena flung out her arms with a sudden passionate gesture; he gave a hoarse cry, and paced up and down like a race-horse curbed with a Spanish bit. How to have one last word with her? If she were behind the walls of the fort of Monterey it would be as easy. He dared not speak from where he was. Already the horses were at the door to carry the eager company to a fight between a bull and a bear. But he could write a note if only he had the materials. It was useless to return to his room, for Joaquin was there; and he hoped never to see that library again. But was there ever a lover in whom necessity did not develop the genius of invention? Dario flashed upward a glance of hope, then took from his pocket a slip of the rice-paper used for making cigaritos. He burnt a match, and with the charred stump scrawled a few lines.

"Elena! Mine! Star of my life! My sweet! Beautiful and idolized. Farewell! Farewell, my darling! My heart is sad. God be with thee.

"DARIO."

He wrapped the paper about a stone, and tied it with a wisp of grass. With a sudden flexile turn of a wrist that had thrown many a reata, he flung it straight through the open window. Elena read the meaningless phrases, then fell insensible to the floor.

IX

It was the custom of Doña Jacoba personally to oversee her entire establishment every day, and she always went at a different hour, that laziness might never feel sure of her back. To-day she visited the rancheria immediately after dinner, and looked through every hut with her piercing eyes. If the children were dirty, she peremptorily ordered their stout mammas to put them into the clean clothes which her bounty had provided. If a bed was unmade, she boxed the ears of the owner and sent her spinning across the room to her task. But she found little to scold about; her discipline was too rigid. When she was satisfied that the huts were in order, she went down to the great stone tubs sunken in the ground, where the women were washing in the heavy shade of the willows. In their calico gowns they made bright bits of colour against the drooping green of the trees.

"Maria," she cried sharply, "thou art wringing that fine linen too harshly. Dost thou wish to break in pieces the bridal clothes of thy señorita? Be careful, or I will lay the whip across thy shoulders."

She walked slowly through the willows, enjoying the shade. Her fine old head was held sternly back, and her shoulders were as square as her youngest son's; but she sighed a little, and pressed a willow branch to her face with a caressing motion. She looked up to the gray peak standing above its fellows, bare, ugly, gaunt. She was not an imaginative woman, but she always had felt in closer kinship with that solitary peak than with her own blood. As she left the wood and saw the gay cavalcade about to start--the burnished horses, the dashing caballeros, the girls with their radiant faces and jaunty habits--she sighed again. Long ago she had been the bride of a brilliant young Mexican officer for a few brief years; her youth had gone with his life.

She avoided the company and went round to the buildings at the back of the house. Approving here, reproaching there, she walked leisurely through the various rooms where the Indians were making lard, shoes, flour, candles. She was in the chocolate manufactory when her husband found her.

"Come--come at once," he said. "I have good news for thee."

She followed him to his room, knowing by his face that tragedy had visited them. But she was not prepared for the tale he poured forth with violent interjections of English and Spanish oaths. She had detected a flirtation between her daughter and the uninvited guest, and not approving of flirtations, had told Joaquin to keep his eyes upon them when hers were absent; but that the man should dare and the girl should stoop to think of marriage wrought in her a passion to which her husband's seemed the calm flame of a sperm-candle.

"What!" she cried, her hoarse voice breaking. "What! A half-breed aspire to a Cortez!" She forgot her husband's separateness with true Californian pride. "My daughter and the son of an Indian! Holy God! And she has dared!--she has dared! The little imbecile! The little--But," and she gave a furious laugh, "she will not forget again."

She caught the greenhide reata from the nail and went up the stair. Crossing the library with heavy tread, as if she would stamp her rage through the floor, she turned the key in the door of her daughter's room and strode in. The girl still lay on the floor, although consciousness had returned. As Elena saw her mother's face she cowered pitifully. That terrible temper seldom dominated the iron will of the woman, but Santiago had shaken it a few days ago, and Elena knew that her turn had come.

Doña Jacoba shut the door and towered above her daughter, red spots on her face, her small eyes blazing, an icy sneer on her mouth. She did not speak a word. She caught the girl by her delicate shoulder, jerked her to her feet, and lashed her with the heavy whip until screams mingled with the gay laughter of the parting guests. When she had beaten her until her own arm ached, she flung her on the bed and went out and locked the door.

Elena was insensible again for a while, then lay dull and inert for hours. She had a passive longing for death. After the suffering and the hideous mortification of that day there seemed no other climax. The cavalcade rode beneath her windows once more, with their untired laughter, their splendid vitality. They scattered to their rooms to don their bright evening gowns, then went to the dining room and feasted.

After supper Francisca unlocked Elena's door and entered with a little tray on her hand. Elena refused to eat, but her sister's presence roused her, and she turned her face to the wall and burst into tears.

"Nonsense!" said Francisca, kindly. "Do not cry, my sister. What is a lover? The end of a little flirtation? My father will find thee a husband--a strong fair English husband like mine. Dost thou not prefer blondes to brunettes, my sister? I am sorry my mother beat thee, but she has such a sense of her duty. She did it for thy good, my Elena. Let me dress thee in thy new gown, the white silk with the pale blue flowers. It is high in the neck and long in the sleeves, and will hide the marks of the whip. Come down and play cascarones and dance until dawn and forget all about it."

But Elena only wept on, and Francisca left her for more imperative duties.

The next day the girl still refused to eat, although Doña Jacoba opened her mouth and poured a cup of chocolate down her throat. Late in the afternoon Santiago slipped into the room and bent over her.

"Elena," he whispered hurriedly. "Look! I have a note for thee."

Elena sat upright on the bed, and he thrust a piece of folded paper into her hand. "Here it is. He is in San Luis Obispo and says he will stay there. Remember it is but a few miles away. My--"

Elena sank back with a cry, and Santiago blasphemed in English. Doña Jacoba unlocked her daughter's hand, took the note, and led Santiago from the room. When she reached her own, she opened a drawer and handed him a canvas bag full of gold.

"Go to San Francisco and enjoy yourself," she said. "Interfere no farther between your sister and your parents, unless you prefer that reata to gold. Your craft cannot outwit mine, and she will read no notes. You are a foolish boy to set your sense against your mother's. I may seem harsh to my children, but I strive on my knees for their good. And when I have made up my mind that a thing is right to do, you know that my nature is of iron. No child of mine shall marry a lazy vagabond who can do nothing but lie in a hammock and bet and gamble and make love. And a half-breed! Mother of God! Now go to San Francisco, and send for more money when this is gone."

Santiago obeyed. There was nothing else for him to do.

Elena lay in her bed, scarcely touching food. Poor child! her nature demanded nothing of life but love, and that denied her, she could find no reason for living. She was not sport-loving like Joaquín, nor practical like Francisca, nor learned like Santiago, nor ambitious to dance through life like her many nieces. She was but a clinging unreasoning creature, with warm blood and a great heart. But she no longer prayed to have Dario given her. It seemed to her that after such suffering her saddened and broken spirit would cast its shadows over her happiest moments, and she longed only for death.

Her mother, becoming alarmed at her increasing weakness, called in an old woman who had been midwife and doctor of the county for half a century. She came, a bent and bony woman who must have been majestic in her youth. Her front teeth were gone, her face was stained with dark splashes like the imprint of a pre-natal hand. Over her head she wore a black shawl; and she looked enough like a witch to frighten her patients into eternity had they not been so well used to her. She prodded Elena all over as if the girl were a loaf of bread and her knotted fingers sought a lump of flour in the dough.

"The heart," she said to Doña Jacoba with sharp emphasis, her back teeth meeting with a click, as if to proclaim their existence. "I have no herbs for that," and she went back to her cabin by the ocean.

That night Elena lifted her head suddenly. From the hill opposite her window came the sweet reverberation of a guitar: then a voice, which, though never heard by her in song before, was as unmistakable as if it had serenaded beneath her window every night since she had known Darío Castañares.

EL ULTIMO ADIÓS

"Si dos con el alma
Se amaron en vida,
Y al fin se separan
En vida las dos;
Sabeis que es tan grande
Le pena sentida
Que con esa palabra
Se dicen adios.
Y en esa palabra
Que breve murmura,
Ni verse prometen
Niamarse se juran;
Que en esa palabra
Se dicen adios.
No hay queja mas honda,
Suspiro mas largo;
Que aquellas palabras
Que dicen adios.
Al fin ha llegado,
La muerte en la vida;
Al fin para entrambos
Muramos los dos:
Al fin ha llegado
La hora cumplida,
Del ultimo adios.
Ya nunca en la vida,
Gentil compañera
Ya nunca volveremos
A vernos los dos:
Por eso es tan triste
Mi acento postrere,
Por eso es tan triste
El ultimo adios."--

They were dancing downstairs; laughter floated through the open windows. Francisca sang a song of the bull-fight, in her strong high voice; the frogs chanted their midnight mass by the creek in the willows; the coyotes wailed; the owls hooted. But nothing could drown that message of love. Elena lit a candle and held it at arm's length before the window. She knew that its ray went straight through the curtains to the singer on the hill, for his voice broke suddenly, then swelled forth in passionate answer. He sat there until dawn singing to her; but the next night he did not come, and Elena knew that she had not been his only audience.

X

The week of festivity was over; the bridal pair, the relatives, the friends went away. Quiet would have taken temporary possession of Los Quervos had it not been for the many passing guests lavishly entertained by Don Roberto.

And still Elena lay in her little iron bed, refusing to get out of it, barely eating, growing weaker and thinner every day. At the end of three weeks Doña Jacoba was thoroughly alarmed, and Don Roberto sent Joaquin to San Francisco for a physician.

The man of science came at the end of a week. He asked many questions, and had a long talk with his patient. When he left the sick-room, he found Don Roberto and Doña Jacoba awaiting him in the library. They were ready to accept his word as law, for he was an Englishman, and had won high reputation during his short stay in the new country.

He spoke with curt directness. "My dear sir, your child is dying because she does not wish to live. People who write novels call it dying of a broken heart; but it does not make much difference about the name. Your child is acutely sensitive, and has an extremely delicate constitution--predisposition to consumption. Separation from the young man she desires to marry has prostrated her to such an extent that she is practically dying. Under existing circumstances she will not live two months, and, to be brutally frank, you will have killed her. I understand that the young man is well-born on his father's side, and possessed of great wealth. I see no reason why she should not marry him. I shall leave her a tonic, but you can throw it out of the window unless you send for the young man," and he walked down the stair and made ready for his departure.

Don Roberto translated the verdict to his wife. She turned very gray, and her thin lips pressed each other. But she bent her head. "So be it," she said; "I cannot do murder. Send for Dario Castañares."

"And tell him to take her to perdition," roared the old man. "Never let me see her again."

He went down the stair, filled a small bag with gold, and gave it to the doctor. He found Joaquin and bade him go for Dario, then shut himself in a remote room, and did not emerge until late that day.

Doña Jacoba sent for the maid, Malia.

"Bring me one of your frocks," she said, "a set of your undergarments, a pair of your shoes and stockings." She walked about the room until the girl's return, her face terrible in its repressed wrath, its gray consciousness of defeat. When Malia came with the garments she told her to follow, and went into Elena's room and stood beside the bed.

"Get up," she said. "Dress thyself in thy bridal clothes. Thou art going to marry Dario Castañares to-day."

The girl looked up incredulously, then closed her eyes wearily.

"Get up," said her mother. "The doctor has said that we must let our daughter marry the half-breed or answer to God for her murder." She turned to the maid: "Malia, go downstairs and make a cup of chocolate and bring it up. Bring, too, a glass of angelica."

But Elena needed neither. She forgot her desire for death, her misgivings of the future; she slipped out of bed, and would have taken a pair of silk stockings from the chest, but her mother stopped her with an imperious gesture, and handed her the coarse shoes and stockings the maid had brought. Elena raised her eyes wonderingly, but drew them on her tender feet without complaint. Then her mother gave her the shapeless undergarments, the gaudy calico frock, and she put them on. When the maid returned with the chocolate and wine, she drank both. They gave her colour and strength; and as she stood up and faced her mother, she had never looked more beautiful nor more stately in the silken gowns that were hers no longer.

"There are horses' hoofs," said Doña Jacoba. "Leave thy father's house and go to thy lover."

Elena followed her from the room, walking steadily, although she was beginning to tremble a little. As she passed the table in the library, she picked up an old silk handkerchief of her father's and tied it about her head and face. A smile was on her lips, but no joy could crowd the sadness from her eyes again. Her spirit was shadowed; her nature had come to its own.

They walked through the silent house, and to Elena's memory came the picture of that other bridal, when the very air shook with pleasure and the rooms were jewelled with beautiful faces; but she would not have exchanged her own nuptials for her sister's calm acceptance.

When she reached the veranda she drew herself up and turned to her mother with all that strange old woman's implacable bearing.

"I demand one wedding present," she said. "The greenhide reata. I wish it as a memento of my mother."

Doña Jacoba, without the quiver of a muscle, walked into her husband's room and returned with the reata and handed it to her. Then Elena turned her back upon her father's house and walked down the road through the willows. Darío did not notice the calico frock or the old handkerchief about her head. He bent down and caught her in his arms and kissed her, then lifting her to his saddle, galloped down the road to San Luis Obispo. Doña Jacoba turned her hard old face to the wall.

A RAMBLE WITH EULOGIA[1]

[Footnote 1: Pronounced a-oo-lo-hia.]

I

Dona Pomposa crossed her hands on her stomach and twirled her thumbs. A red spot was in each coffee-coloured cheek, and the mole in her scanty eyebrow jerked ominously. Her lips were set in a taut line, and her angry little eyes were fixed upon a girl who sat by the window strumming a guitar, her chin raised with an air of placid impertinence.

"Thou wilt stop this nonsense and cast no more glances at Juan Tornel!" commanded Doña Pomposa. "Thou little brat! Dost thou think that I am one to let my daughter marry before she can hem? Thank God we have more sense than our mothers! No child of mine shall marry at fifteen. Now listen--thou shalt be locked in a dark room if I am kept awake again by that hobo serenading at thy window. To-morrow, when thou goest to church, take care that thou throwest him no glance. Dios de mi alma! I am worn out! Three nights have I been awakened by that _tw-a-n-g, tw-a-n-g."_

"You need not be afraid," said her daughter, digging her little heel into the floor. "I shall not fall in love. I have no faith in men."

Her mother laughed outright in spite of her anger.

"Indeed, my Eulogia! Thou art very wise. And why, pray, hast thou no faith in men?"

Eulogia tossed the soft black braid from her shoulder, and fixed her keen roguish eyes on the old lady's face.

"Because I have read all the novels of the Señor Dumas, and I well know all those men he makes. And they never speak the truth to women; always they are selfish, and think only of their own pleasure. If the women suffer, they do not care; they do not love the women--only themselves. So I am not going to be fooled by the men. I shall enjoy life, but I shall think of _myself_, not of the men."

Her mother gazed at her in speechless amazement. She never had read a book in her life, and had not thought of locking from her daughter the few volumes her dead husband had collected. Then she gasped with consternation.

"Por Dios, señorita, a fine woman thou wilt make of thyself with such ideas! a nice wife and mother--when the time comes. What does Padro Flores say to that, I should like to know? It is very strange that he has let you read those books."

"I have never told him," said Eulogia, indifferently.

"What!" screamed her mother. "You never told at confession?"

"No, I never did. It was none of his business what I read. Reading is no sin. I confessed all--"

"Mother of God!" cried Doña Pomposa, and she rushed at Eulogia with uplifted hand; but her nimble daughter dived under her arm with a provoking laugh, and ran out of the room.

That night Eulogia pushed aside the white curtain of her window and looked out. The beautiful bare hills encircling San Luis Obispo were black in the silvered night, but the moon made the town light as day. The owls were hooting on the roof of the mission; Eulogia could see them flap their wings. A few Indians were still moving among the dark huts outside the walls, and within, the padre walked among his olive trees. Beyond the walls the town was still awake. Once a horseman dashed down the street, and Eulogia wondered if murder had been done in the mountains; the bandits were thick in their fastnesses. She did wish she could see one. Then she glanced eagerly down the road beneath her window. In spite of the wisdom she had accepted from the French romanticist, her fancy was just a little touched by Juan Tornel. His black flashing eyes could look so tender, and he rode so beautifully. She twitched the curtain into place and ran across the room, her feet pattering on the bare floor, jumped into her little iron bed, and drew the dainty sheet to her throat. A ladder had fallen heavily against the side of the house.

She heard an agile form ascend and seat itself on the deep window-sill. Then the guitar vibrated under the touch of master fingers, and a rich sweet tenor sang to her:--

EL CORAZON

"El corazon del amor palpita,
Al oir de tu dulce voz,
Cuando mi sangre
Se pone en agitación,
Tu eres la mas hermosa,
Tu eres la luz del dia,
Tu eres la gloria mia,
Tu eres mi dulce bien.

"Negro tienes el cabello,
Talle lineas hermosas,
Mano blanca, pie precioso,
No hay que decir en ti:--Tu
eres la mas hermosa,
Tu eres la luz del dia,
Tu eres la prenda mía,
Tu me harás morir.

"Que importa que noche y dia,
En ti sola estoy pensando,
El corazón palpitante
No cesa de repetir:--
Tu eres la mas hermosa,
Tu eres la luz del dia,
Tu eres la prenda mía,
Tu me harás morir--Eulogia!"

Eulogia lay as quiet as a mouse in the daytime, not daring to applaud, hoping fatigue had sent her mother to sleep. Her lover tuned his guitar and began another song, but she did not hear it; she was listening to footfalls in the garret above. With a presentiment of what was about to happen she sprang out of bed with a warning cry; but she was too late. There was a splash and rattle on the window-seat, a smothered curse, a quick descent, a triumphant laugh from above. Eulogia stamped her foot with rage. She cautiously raised the window and passed her hand along the outer sill. This time she beat the casement with both hands: they were covered with warm ashes.

"Well, my daughter, have I not won the battle?" said a voice behind her, and Eulogia sat down on the window-seat and swung her feet in silent wrath.

Doña Pomposa wore a rather short night-gown, and her feet were encased in a pair of her husband's old boots. Her hair was twisted under a red silk kerchief, and again she crossed her hands on her stomach, but the thumbs upheld a candle. Eulogia giggled suddenly.

"What dost thou laugh at, señorita? At the way I have served thy lover? Dost thou think he will come soon again?"

"No, mamma, you have proved the famous hospitality of the Californians which the Americans are always talking about. You need have no more envy of the magnificence of Los Quervos." And then she kicked her heels against the wall.

"Oh, thou canst make sharp speeches, thou impertinent little brat; but Juan Tornel will serenade under thy window no more. Dios! the ashes must look well on his pretty mustachios. Go to bed. I will put thee to board in the convent to-morrow." And she shuffled out of the room, her ample figure swinging from side to side like a large pendulum.

II

The next day Eulogia was sitting on her window-seat, her chin resting on her knees, a volume of Dumas beside her, when the door was cautiously opened and her Aunt Anastacia entered the room. Aunt Anastacia was very large; in fact she nearly filled the doorway; she also disdained whalebones and walked with a slight roll. Her ankles hung over her feet, and her red cheeks and chin were covered with a short black down. Her hair was twisted into a tight knot and protected by a thick net, and she wore a loose gown of brown calico, patterned with large red roses. But good-nature beamed all over her indefinite features, and her little eyes dwelt adoringly upon Eulogia, who gave her an absent smile.

"Poor little one," she said in her indulgent voice. "But it was cruel in my sister to throw ashes on thy lover. Not but what thou art too young for lovers, my darling,--although I had one at twelve. But times have changed. My little one--I have a note for thee. Thy mother is out, and he has gone away, so there can be no harm in reading it--"

"Give it to me at once"--and Eulogia dived into her aunt's pocket and found the note.

"Beautiful and idolized Eulogia.--Adios! Adios! I came a stranger to thy town. I fell blinded at thy feet. I fly forever from the scornful laughter in thine eyes. Ay, Eulogia, how couldst thou? But no! I will not believe it was thou! The dimples that play in thy cheeks, the sparks that fly in thine eyes--Dios de mi vida! I cannot believe that they come from a malicious soul. No, enchanting Eulogia! Consolation of my soul! It was thy mother who so cruelly humiliated me, who drives me from thy town lest I be mocked in the streets. Ay, Eulogia! Ay, misericordia! Adios! Adios!

"JUAN TORNEL."

Eulogia shrugged her shoulders. "Well, my mother is satisfied, perhaps. She has driven him away. At least, I shall not have to go to the convent."

"Thou art so cold, my little one," said Aunt Anastacia, disapprovingly. "Thou art but fifteen years, and yet thou throwest aside a lover as if he were an old reboso. Madre de Dios! In your place I should have wept and beaten the air. But perhaps that is the reason all the young men are wild for thee. Not but that I had many lovers--"

"It is too bad thou didst not marry one," interrupted Eulogia, maliciously. "Perhaps thou wouldst"--and she picked up her book--"if thou hadst read the Señor Dumas."

"Thou heartless baby!" cried her indignant aunt, "when I love thee so, and bring thy notes at the risk of my life, for thou knowest that thy mother would pull the hair from my head. Thou little brat! to say I could not marry, when I had twenty--"

Eulogia jumped up and pecked her on the chin like a bird. "Twenty-five, my old mountain. I only joked with thee. Thou didst not marry because thou hadst more sense than to trot about after a man. Is it not so, my old sack of flour? I was but angry because I thought thou hadst helped my mother last night."

"Never! I was sound asleep."

"I know, I know. Now trot away. I hear my mother coming," and Aunt Anastacia obediently left her niece to the more congenial company of the Señor Dumas.

III

The steep hills of San Luis Obispo shot upward like the sloping sides of a well, so round was the town. Scarlet patches lay on the slopes--the wide blossoms of the low cacti. A gray-green peak and a mulberry peak towered, kithless and gaunt, in the circle of tan-coloured hills brushed with purple. The garden of the mission was green with fruit trees and silver with olive groves. On the white church and long wing lay the red tiles; beyond the wall the dull earth huts of the Indians. Then the straggling town with its white adobe houses crouching on the grass.

Eulogia was sixteen. A year had passed since Juan Tornel serenaded beneath her window, and, if the truth must be told, she had almost forgotten him. Many a glance had she shot over her prayer-book in the mission church; many a pair of eyes, dreamy or fiery, had responded. But she had spoken with no man. After a tempestuous scene with her mother, during which Aunt Anastacia had wept profusely, a compromise had been made: Eulogia had agreed to have no more flirtations until she was sixteen, but at that age she should go to balls and have as many lovers as she pleased.

She walked through the olive groves with Padre Moraga on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. The new padre and she were the best of friends.

"Well," said the good old man, pushing the long white hair from his dark face--it fell forward whenever he stooped--"well, my little one, thou goest to thy first ball to-night. Art thou happy?"

Eulogia lifted her shoulder. Her small nose also tilted.

"Happy? There is no such thing as happiness, my father. I shall dance, and flirt, and make all the young men fall in love with me. I shall enjoy myself, that is enough."

The padre smiled; he was used to her.

"Thou little wise one!" He collected himself suddenly. "But thou art right to build thy hopes of happiness on the next world alone." Then he continued, as if he merely had broken the conversation to say the Angelus: "And thou art sure that thou wilt be La Favorita? Truly, thou hast confidence in thyself--an inexperienced chit who has not half the beauty of many other girls."

"Perhaps not; but the men shall love me better, all the same. Beauty is not everything, my father. I have a greater attraction than soft eyes and a pretty mouth."

"Indeed! Thou baby! Why, thou art no bigger than a well-grown child, and thy mouth was made for a woman twice thy size. Where dost thou keep that extraordinary charm?" Not but that he knew, for he liked her better than any girl in the town, but he felt it his duty to act the part of curb-bit now and again.

"You know, my father," said Eulogia, coolly; "and if you have any doubt, wait until to-morrow."

The ball was given in the long sala of Doña Antonia Ampudia, on the edge of the rambling town. As the night was warm, the young people danced through the low windows on to the wide corridor; and, if watchful eyes relaxed their vigilance, stepped off to the grass and wandered among the trees. The brown old women in dark silks sat against the wall, as dowagers do to-day. Most of the girls wore bright red or yellow gowns, although softer tints blossomed here and there. Silken black hair was braided close to the neck, the coiffure finished with a fringe of chenille. As they whirled in the dance, their full bright gowns looked like an agitated flower-bed suddenly possessed by a wandering tribe of dusky goddesses.

Eulogia came rather late. At the last moment her mother had wavered in her part of the contract, and it was not until Eulogia had sworn by every saint in the calendar that she would not leave the sala, even though she stifled, that Doña Pomposa had reluctantly consented to take her. Eulogia's perfect little figure was clad in a prim white silk gown, but her cold brilliant eyes were like living jewels, her large mouth was as red as the cactus patches on the hills, and a flame burned in either cheek. In a moment she was surrounded by the young men who had been waiting for her. It might be true that twenty girls in the room were more beautiful than she, but she had a quiet manner more effective than animation, a vigorous magnetism of which she was fully aware, and a cool coquetry which piqued and fired the young men, who were used to more sentimental flirtations.

She danced as airily as a flower on the wind, but with untiring vitality.

"Señorita!" exclaimed Don Carmelo Peña, "thou takest away my breath. Dost thou never weary?"

"Never. I am not a man."

"Ay, señorita, thou meanest--"

"That women were made to make the world go round, and men to play the guitar."

"Ay, I can play the guitar. I will serenade thee to-morrow night."

"Thou wilt get a shower of ashes for thy pains. Better stay at home, and prepare thy soul with three-card _monte_"

"Ay, señorita, but thou art cruel! Does no man please thee?"

"_Men_ please me. How tiresome to dance with a woman!"

"And that is all the use thou hast for us? For us who would die for thee?"

"In a barrel of aguardiente? I prefer thee to dance with. To tell the truth, thy step suits mine."

"Ay, señorita mia! thou canst put honey on thy tongue. God of my life, señorita--I fling my heart at thy feet!"

"I fear to break it, señor, for I have faith that it is made of thin glass. It would cut my feet. I like better this smooth floor. Who is that standing by the window? He has not danced to-night?"

"Don Pablo Ignestria of Monterey. He says the women of San Luis are not half so beautiful nor so elegant as the women of Monterey; he says they are too dark and too small. He does not wish to dance with any one; nor do any of the girls wish to dance with him. They are very angry."

"I wish to dance with him. Bring him to me."

"But, señorita, I tell thee thou wouldst not like him. Holy heaven! Why do those eyes flash so? Thou lookest as if thou wouldst fight with thy little fists."

"Bring him to me."

Don Carmelo walked obediently over to Don Pablo, although burning with jealousy.

"Señor, at your service," he said. "I wish to introduce you to the most charming señorita in the room."

"Which?" asked Ignestria, incuriously.

Don Carmelo indicated Eulogia with a grand sweep of his hand.

"That little thing? Why, there are a dozen prettier girls in the room than she, and I have not cared to meet any of them!"

"But she has commanded me to take you to her, señor, and--look at the men crowding about her--do you think I dare to disobey?"

The stranger's dark gray eyes became less insensible. He was a handsome man, with a tall figure, and a smooth strong face; but about him hung the indolence of the Californian.

"Very well," he said, "take me to her."

He asked her to dance, and after a waltz Eulogia said she was tired, and they sat down within a proper distance of Doña Pomposa's eagle eye.

"What do you think of the women of San Luis Obispo?" asked Eulogia, innocently. "Are not they handsome?"

"They are not to be compared with the women of Monterey--since you ask me."

"Because they find the men of San Luis more gallant than the Señor Don Pablo Ignestria!"

"Do they? One, I believe, asked to have me introduced to her!"

"True, señor. I wished to meet you that you might fall in love with me, and that the ladies of San Luis might have their vengeance."

He stared at her.

"Truly, señorita, but you do not hide your cards. And why, then, should I fall in love with you?"

"Because I am different from the women of Monterey."

"A good reason why I should not. I have been in every town in California, and I admire no women but those of my city."

"And because you will hate me first."

"And if I hate you, how can I love you?"

"It is the same. You hate one woman and love another. Each is the same passion, only to a different person out goes a different side. Let the person loved or hated change his nature, and the passion will change."

He looked at her with more interest.

"In truth I think I shall begin with love and end with hate, señorita. But that wisdom was not born in your little head; for sixteen years, I think, have not sped over it, no? It went in, if I mistake not, through those bright eyes."

"Yes, señor, that is true. I am not content to be just like other girls of sixteen. I want to _know_--_to know._ Have you ever read any books, señor?"

"Many." He looked at her with a lively interest now. "What ones have you read?"

"Only the beautiful romances of the Señor Dumas. I have seen no others, for there are not many books in San Luis. Have you read others?"

"A great many others. Two wonderful Spanish books--'Don Quixote de la Mancha' and 'Gil Blas,' and the romances of Sir Waltere Scote--a man of England, and some lives of famous men, señorita. A great man lent them to me--the greatest of our Governors--Alvarado."

"And you will lend them to me?" cried Eulogia, forgetting her coquetry, "I want to read them."

"Aha! Those cool eyes can flash. That even little voice can break in two. By the holy Evangelists, señorita, thou shalt have every book I possess."

"Will the Señorita Doña Eulogia favour us with a song?"

Don Carmelo was bowing before her, a guitar in his hand, his wrathful eyes fixed upon Don Pablo.

"Yes," said Eulogia.

She took the guitar and sang a love-song in a manner which can best be described as no manner at all; her expression never changed, her voice never warmed. At first the effect was flat, then the subtle fascination of it grew until the very memory of impassioned tones was florid and surfeiting. When she finished, Ignestria's heart was hammering upon the steel in which he fancied he had prisoned it.

IV

"Well," said Eulogia to Padre Moraga two weeks later, "am I not La Favorita?"

"Thou art, thou little coquette. Thou hast a power over men which thou must use with discretion, my Eulogia. Tell thy beads three times a day and pray that thou mayest do no harm."

"I wish to do harm, my father, for men have broken the hearts of women for ages--"

"Chut, chut, thou baby! Men are not so black as they are painted. Harm no one, and the world will be better that thou hast lived in it."

"If I scratch, fewer women will be scratched," and she raised her shoulders beneath the flowered muslin of her gown, swung her guitar under her arm, and walked down the grove, the silver leaves shining above her smoky hair.

The padre had bidden all the young people of the upper class to a picnic in the old mission garden. Girls in gay muslins and silk rebosos were sitting beneath the arches of the corridor or flitting under the trees where the yellow apricots hung among the green leaves. Languid and sparkling faces coquetted with caballeros in bright calico jackets and knee-breeches laced with silken cord, their slender waists girt with long sashes hanging gracefully over the left hip. The water rilled in the winding creek, the birds carolled in the trees; but above all rose the sound of light laughter and sweet strong voices.

They took their dinner behind the arches, at a table the length of the corridor, and two of the young men played the guitar and sang, whilst the others delighted their keen palates with the goods the padre had provided.

Don Pablo sat by Eulogia, a place he very often managed to fill; but he never had seen her for a moment alone.

"I must go soon, Eulogia," he murmured, as the voices waxed louder. "Duty calls me back to Monterey."

"I am glad to know thou hast a sense of thy duty."

"Nothing but that would take me away from San Luis Obispo. But both my mother and--and--a dear friend are ill, and wish to see me."

"Thou must go to-night. How canst thou eat and be gay when thy mother and--and--a dear friend are ill?"

"Ay, Eulogia! wouldst thou scoff over my grave? I go, but it is for thee to say if I return."

"Do not tell me that thou adorest me here at the table. I shall blush, and all will be about my smarting ears like the bees down in the padre's hive."

"I shall not tell thee that before all the world, Eulogia. All I ask is this little favour: I shall send thee a letter the night I leave. Promise me that thou wilt answer it--to Monterey."

"No, sir! Long ago, when I was twelve, I made a vow I would never write to a man. I never break that vow."

"Thou wilt break it for me, Eulogia."

"And why for you, señor? Half the trouble in the world has been made on paper."

"Oh, thou wise one! What trouble can a piece of paper make when it lies on a man's heart?"

"It can crackle when another head lies on it."

"No head will ever lie here but--"

"Mine?"

"Eulogia!"

"To thee, Señorita Doña Eulogia," cried a deep voice. "May the jewels in thine eyes shine by the stars when thou art above them. May the tears never dim them while they shine for us below," and a caballero pushed back his chair, leaned forward, and touched her glass with his, then went down on one knee and drank the red wine.

Eulogia threw him a little absent smile, sipped her wine, and went on talking to Ignestria in her soft monotonous voice.

"My friend--Graciosa La Cruz--went a few weeks ago to Monterey for a visit. You will tell her I think of her, no?"

"I will dance with her often because she is your friend--until I return to San Luis Obispo."

"Will that be soon, señor?"

"I told thee that would be as soon as thou wished. Thou wilt answer my letter--promise me, Eulogia."

"I will not, señor. I intend to be wiser than other women. At the very least, my follies shall not burn paper. If you want an answer, you will return."

"I will _not_ return without that answer. I never can see thee alone, and if I could, thy coquetry would not give me a plain answer. I must see it on paper before I will believe."

"Thou canst wait for the day of resurrection for thy knowledge, then!"

V

Once more Aunt Anastacia rolled her large figure through Eulogia's doorway and handed her a letter.

"From Don Pablo Ignestria, my baby," she said. "Oh, what a man! what a caballero! And so smart. He waited an hour by the creek in the mission gardens until he saw thy mother go out, and then he brought the note to me. He begged to see thee, but I dared not grant that, niñita, for thy mother will be back in ten minutes."

"Go downstairs and keep my mother there," commanded Eulogia, and Aunt Anastacia rolled off, whilst her niece with unwonted nervousness opened the letter.

"Sweet of my soul! Day-star of my life! I dare not speak to thee of love because, strong man as I am, still am I a coward before those mocking eyes. Therefore if thou laugh the first time thou readest that I love thee, I shall not see it, and the second time thou mayest be more kind. Beautiful and idolized Eulogia, men have loved thee, but never will be cast at thy little feet a heart stronger or truer than mine. Ay, dueño adorada, I love thee! Without hope? No! I believe that thou lovest me, thou cold little one, although thou dost not like to think that the heart thou hast sealed can open to let love in. But, Eulogia! Star of my eyes! I love thee so I will break that heart in pieces, and give thee another so soft and warm that it will beat all through the old house to which I will take thee. For thou wilt come to me, thou little coquette? Thou wilt write to me to come back and stand with thee in the mission while the good padre asks the saints to bless us? Eulogia, thou hast sworn thou wilt write to no man, but thou wilt write to me, my little one. Thou wilt not break the heart that lives in thine.

"I kiss thy little feet. I kiss thy tiny hands. I kiss--ay, Eulogia! Adios! Adios!

"PABLO."

Eulogia could not resist that letter. Her scruples vanished, and, after an entire day of agonized composition, she sent these lines:--

"You can come back to San Luis Obispo.

"EULOGIA AMATA FRANCISCA GUADALUPE CARILLO."

VI

Another year had passed. No answer had come from Pablo Ignestria. Nor had he returned to San Luis Obispo. Two months after Eulogia had sent her letter, she received one from Graciosa La Cruz, containing the information that Ignestria had married the invalid girl whose love for him had been the talk of Monterey for many years. And Eulogia? Her flirtations had earned her far and wide the title of Doña Coquetta, and she was cooler, calmer, and more audacious than ever.

"Dost thou never intend to marry?" demanded Doña Pomposa one day, as she stood over the kitchen stove stirring red peppers into a saucepan full of lard.

Eulogia was sitting on the table swinging her small feet. "Why do you wish me to marry? I am well enough as I am. Was Elena Castañares so happy with the man who was mad for her that I should hasten to be a neglected wife? Poor my Elena! Four years, and then consumption and death. Three children and an indifferent husband, who was dying of love when he could not get her."

"Thou thinkest of unhappy marriages because thou hast just heard of Elena's death. But there are many others."

"Did you hear of the present she left her mother?"

"No." Doña Pomposa dropped her spoon; she dearly loved a bit of gossip. "What was it?"

"You know that a year ago Elena went home to Los Quervos and begged Don Roberto and Doña Jacoba on her knees to forgive her, and they did, and were glad to do it. Doña Jacoba was with her when she was so ill at the last, and just before she died Elena said: 'Mother, in that chest you will find a legacy from me. It is all of my own that I have in the world, and I leave it to you. Do not take it until I am dead.' And what do you think it was? The greenhide reata."

"Mother of God! But Jacoba must have felt as if she were already in purgatory."

"It is said that she grew ten years older in the night."

"May the saints be praised, my child can leave me no such gift. But all men are not like Dario Castañares. I would have thee marry an American. They are smart and know how to keep the gold. Remember, I have little now, and thou canst not be young forever."

"I have seen no American I would marry."

"There is Don Abel Hudson."

"I do not trust that man. His tongue is sweet and his face is handsome, but always when I meet him I feel a little afraid, although it goes away in a minute. The Señor Dumas says that a woman's instincts--"

"To perdition with Señor Dumas! Does he say that a chit's instincts are better than her mother's? Don Abel throws about the money like rocks. He has the best horses at the races. He tells me that he has a house in Yerba Buena--"

"San Francisco. And I would not live in that bleak and sandy waste. Did you notice how he limped at the ball last night?"

"No. What of that? But I am not in love with Don Abel Hudson if thou art so set against him. It is true that no one knows just who he is, now I think of it. I had not made up my mind that he was the husband for thee. But let it be an American, my Eulogia. Even when they have no money they will work for it, and that is what no Californian will do--"

But Eulogia had run out of the room: she rarely listened to the end of her mother's harangues. She draped a reboso about her head, and went over to the house of Graciosa La Cruz. Her friend was sitting by her bedroom window, trimming a yellow satin bed-spread with lace, and Eulogia took up a half-finished sheet and began fastening the drawn threads into an intricate pattern.

"Only ten days more, my Graciosa," she said mischievously. "Art thou going to run back to thy mother in thy night-gown, like Josefita Olvera?"

"Never will I be such a fool! Eulogia, I have a husband for thee."

"To the tunnel of the mission with husbands! I shall be an old maid like Aunt Anastacia, fat, with black whiskers."

Graciosa laughed. "Thou wilt marry and have ten children."

"By every station in the mission I will not. Why bring more women into the world to suffer?"

"Ay, Eulogia! thou art always saying things I cannot understand and that thou shouldst not think about. But I have a husband for thee. He came from Los Angeles this morning, and is a friend of my Carlos. His name is not so pretty--Tomas Garfias. There he rides now."

Eulogia looked out of the window with little curiosity. A small young man was riding down the street on a superb horse coloured like golden bronze, with silver mane and tail. His saddle of embossed leather was heavily mounted with silver; the spurs were inlaid with gold and silver, and the straps of the latter were worked with gleaming metal threads. He wore a light red serape, heavily embroidered and fringed. His botas of soft deerskin, dyed a rich green and stamped with Aztec Eagles, were tied at the knee by a white silk cord wound about the leg and finished with heavy silver tassels. His short breeches were trimmed with gold lace. As he caught Graciosa's eye he raised his sombrero, then rode through the open door of a neighbouring saloon and tossed off an American drink without dismounting from his horse.

Eulogia lifted her shoulders. "I like his saddle and his horse, but he is too small. Still, a new man is not disagreeable. When shall I meet him?"

"To-night, my Eulogia. He goes with us to Miramar."

VII

A party of young people started that night for a ball at Miramar, the home of Don Polycarpo Quijas. Many a caballero had asked the lady of his choice to ride on his saddle while he rode on the less comfortable aquera behind and guided his horse with arm as near her waist as he dared. Doña Pomposa, with a small brood under her wing, started last of all in an American wagon. The night was calm, the moon was high, the party very gay.

Abel Hudson and the newcomer, Don Tomas Garfias, sat on either side of Eulogia, and she amused herself at the expense of both.

"Don Tomas says that he is handsomer than the men of San Luis," she said to Hudson. "Do not you think he is right? See what a beautiful curl his mustachios have, and what a droop his eyelids. Holy Mary!--how that yellow ribbon becomes his hair! Ay, señor! Why have you come to dazzle the eyes of the poor girls of San Luis Obispo?"

"Ah, señorita," said the little dandy, "it will do their eyes good to see an elegant young man from the city. And they should see my sister. She would teach them how to dress and arrange their hair."

"Bring her to teach us, señor, and for reward we will find her a tall and modest husband such as the girls of San Luis Obispo admire. Don Abel, why do you not boast of your sisters? Have you none, nor mother, nor father, nor brother? I never hear you speak of them. Maybe you grow alone out of the earth."

Hudson's gaze wandered to the canon they were approaching. "I am alone, señorita; a lonely man in a strange land."

"Is that the reason why you are such a traveller, señor? Are you never afraid, in your long lonely rides over the mountains, of that dreadful bandit, John Power, who murders whole families for the sack of gold they have under the floor? I hope you always carry plenty of pistols, señor."