"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, señorita. 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 scraped, the
guitars twanged, the flutes cooed, and the dancing began.
In the court-yard a small space 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.
As the contradanza and its ensuing waltz finished, Estenega went up to
Chonita. "You are too tired to dance any more to-night," he said. "Let
us sit here and talk. Besides, I do not like to see you whirling about
the room in men's arms."
"It is nothing to you if I dance with other men," she said,
rebelliously, although she took the seat he indicated. "And to dance
is not wrong."
"Nothing is wrong. In some countries the biggest liar is king. We
know as little of ethics--except, to be sure, the ethics of
civilization--as one sex knows of another. So we fall back on
instinct. I have not a prejudice, but I feel it disgusting to see a
woman who is somewhat more to me than other women, embraced by another
man. It would infuriate me if done in private; why should it not at
least disgust me in public? I care as little for the approving seal
of the conventions as I care whether other women--including my own
sisters--waltz or not."
And, alas! from that night Chonita never waltzed again. "It is not
that I care for his opinion," she assured me later; "only he made me
feel that I never wanted a man to touch me again."
Valencia used every art of flashing eyes and pouting lips and gay
sally--there was nothing subtle in her methods--to win Estenega to her
side; but the sofa on which he sat with Chonita might have been
the remotest star in the firmament. Then, prompted by pique and
determination to find ointment for her wounded vanity, she suddenly
opened her batteries upon Reinaldo. That beautiful young bridegroom
was bored to the verge of dissolution by his solemn and sleepy
Prudencia, who kept her wide eyes upon him with an expression of rapt
adoration, exactly as she regarded the Stations in the Mission when
performing the Via Crucis. Valencia, to his mind, was the handsomest
woman in the room, and he felt the flattery of her assault. Besides,
he was safely married. So he drifted to her side, danced with her,
flirted with her, devoted himself to her caprices, until every one was
noting, and I thought that Prudencia would bawl outright. Just in the
moment, however, when our nerves were humming, Don Guillermo thumped
on the door with his stick and ordered us all to go to bed.