We went to a bull-fight that day, danced that night, meriendaed and
danced again; a siesta in the afternoon, a few hours' sleep in the
night, refreshing us all. Chonita, alone, looked pale, but I knew that
her pallor was not due to weariness. And I knew that she was beginning
to fear Estenega; the time was almost come when she would fear herself
more. Estenega had several talks apart with her. He managed it without
any apparent maneuvering; but he always had the devil's methods.
Valencia avenged herself by flirting desperately with Reinaldo, and
Prudencia's honeymoon was seasoned with gall.
On Saturday night Chonita stole from her guests, donned a black gown
and reboso, and, attended by two Indian servants, went up to the
Mission to confession. As she left the church a half-hour later, and
came down the steps, Estenega rose from a bench beneath the arches of
the corridor and joined her.
"How did you know that I came?" she asked; and it was not the stars
that lit her face.
"You do little that I do not know. Have you been to confession?"
"Yes."
They walked slowly down the valley.
"And you forgave and were forgiven?"
"Yes. Ay! but my penance is heavy!"
"But when it is done you will be at rest, I suppose."
"Oh, I hope! I hope!"
"Have you begun to realize that your Church cannot satisfy you?"
"No! I will not say that."
"But you know it. Your intelligence has opened a window somewhere and
the truth has crept in."
"Do not take my religion from me, señor!" Her eyes and voice appealed
to him, and he accepted her first confession of weakness with a throb
of exulting tenderness.
"My love!" he said, "I would give you more than I took from you."
"No! never!--Even if we were not enemies, and I had not made that
terrible vow, my religion has been all in all to me. Just now I have
many things that torment me; and I have asked so little of religion
before--my life has been so calm--that now I hardly know how to ask
for so much more. I shall learn. Leave me in peace."
"Do you want me to go?" he asked. "If you did,--if I troubled you by
staying here,--I believe I would go. Only I know it would do no good:
I should come back."
"No! no! I do not want you to go. I should feel--I will admit to
you--like a house without its foundation. And yet sometimes, I pray
that you will go. Ay! I do not like life. I used to have pride in my
intelligence. Where is my pride now? What good has the wisdom in my
books done me, when I confess my dependence upon a man, and that
man my enemy--and the acquaintance of a few weeks?" She was speaking
incoherently, and Estenega chafed at the restraint of the servants so
close behind them. "Tell me," she exclaimed, "what is it in you that I
want?--that I need? It is something that belongs to me. Give it to me,
and go away."
"Chonita, I give it to you gladly, God knows. But you must take me,
too. You want in me what is akin to you and what you will find nowhere
else. But I cannot tear my soul out of my body. You must take both or
neither."
"Ay! I cannot! You know that I cannot!
"I ignore your reasons."
"But I do not."
"You shall, my beloved. Or if you do not ignore you shall forget
them."
"When I am dead--would that I were!" She was excited and trembling.
The confession had been an ordeal, and Estenega was never
tranquillizing. She wished to cling to him, but was still mistress
of herself. He divined her impulse, and drew her arm through his and
across his breast. He opened her hand and pressed his lips to the
palm. Then he bent his face above hers. She was trembling violently;
her face was wild and white. His own was ashen, and the heart beneath
her arm beat rapidly.
"I love you devotedly," he said. "You believe that, Chonita?"
"Ah! Mother of God! do not! I cannot listen."
"But you shall listen. Throw off your superstitions and come to me.
Keep the part of your religion that is not superstition; I would be
the last to take it from you; but I will not permit its petty dogmas
to stand between us. As for your traditions, you have not even the
excuse of filial duty; your father would not forbid you to become my
wife. And I love you very earnestly and passionately. Just how much, I
might convey to you if we were alone."
He was obliged to exercise great self-restraint, but there was no
mistaking his seriousness. When such scientific triflers do find a
woman worth loving, they are too deeply sensible of the fact not to
be stirred to their depths; and their depths are apt to be in large
disproportion to the lightness of their ordinary mood. "Come to me,"
he continued. "I need you; and I will be as tender and thoughtful
a husband as I will be ardent as a lover. You love me: don't blind
yourself any longer. Do you picture, in a life of solitude and cold
devotion to phantoms, any happiness equal to what you would find here
in my arms?"
"Oh, hush! hush! You could make me do what you wished, I have no will.
I feel no longer myself. What is this terrible power?"
"It is the magnetism of love; that is all. I am not exercising any
diabolical power over you. Listen: I will not trouble you any more
now. I am obliged to go to Los Angeles the day after to-morrow, and on
my way back to Monterey--in about two weeks--I shall come here again.
Then we will talk together; but I warn you, I will accept only one
answer. You are mine, and I shall have you."
They reached Casa Grande a moment later, and she escaped from him and
ran to her room. But she dared not remain alone. Hastily changing her
black gown for the first her hand touched,--it happened to be vivid
red and made her look as white as wax,--she returned to the sala;
not to dance even the square contradanza, but to stand surrounded by
worshiping caballeros with curling hair tied with gay ribbons, and
jewels in their laces. Valencia regarded her with a bitter jealousy
that was rising from red heat to white. How dared a woman with hair of
gold wear the color of the brunette? It was a theft. It was the last
indignity. And once more she chained Reinaldo, in default of Estenega,
to her side. And deep in Prudencia's heart wove a scheme of vengeance;
the loom and warp had been presented unwittingly by her chivalrous
father-in-law.
Estenega remained in the sala a few moments after Chonita's
reappearance, then left the house and wandered through the booth in
the court, where the people were dancing and singing and eating and
gambling as if with the morrow an eternal Lent would come, and thence
through the silent town to the pleasure-grounds of Casa Grande, which
lay about half a mile from the house. He had been there but a short
while when he heard a rustle, a light footfall; and, turning, he saw
Chonita, unattended, her bare neck and gold hair gleaming against the
dark, her train dragging. She was advancing swiftly toward him. His
pulses bounded, and he sprang toward her, his arms outstretched; but
she waved him back.
"Have mercy," she said. "I am alone. I brought no one, because I have
that to tell you which no one else must hear."
He stepped back and looked at the ground.
"Listen," she said. "I could not wait until to-morrow, because a
moment lost might mean--might mean the ruin of your career, and you
say your envoy has not gone yet. Just now--I will tell you the other
first. Mother of God! that I should betray my brother to my enemy! But
it seems to me right, because you placed your confidence in me, and
I should feel that I betrayed you if I did not warn you. I do not
know--oh, Mary!--I do not know--but this seems to me right. The other
night my brother came to me and asked me--ay! do not look at me--to
marry you, that you would balk his ambition no further. He wishes to
go as diputado to Mexico, and he knows that you will not let him. I
thought my brain would crack,--an Iturbi y Moncada!--I made him no
answer,--there was no answer to a demand like that,--and he went from
me in a fury, vowing vengeance upon you. To-night, a few moments
ago, he whispered to me that he knew of your plans, your intentions
regarding the Americans: he had overheard a conversation between you
and Alvarado. He says that he will send letters to Mexico to-morrow,
warning the government against you. Then their suspicions will be
roused, and they will inquire--Ay, Mary!"
Estenega brought his teeth together. "God!" he exclaimed.
She saw that he had forgotten her. She turned and went back more
swiftly than she had come.
Estenega was a man whose resources never failed him. He returned to
the house and asked Reinaldo to smoke a cigarito and drink a bottle of
wine in his room. Then, without a promise or a compromising word, he
so flattered that shallow youth, so allured his ambition and pampered
his vanity and watered his hopes, that fear and hatred wondered at
their existence, closed their eyes, and went to sleep. Reinaldo
poured forth his aspirations, which under the influence of the
truth-provoking vine proved to be an honest yearning for the pleasures
of Mexico. As he rose to go he threw his arm about Estenega's neck.
"Ay! my friend! my friend!" he cried, "thou art all-powerful. Thou
alone canst give me what I want."
"Why did you never ask me for what you wanted?" asked Estenega. And
he thought, "If it were not for Her, you would be on your way to Los
Angeles to-night under charge of high treason. I would not have taken
this much trouble with you."