Who shall interpret the feelings of a high-minded maid who is bent on
wrecking her own and two other lives through a mistaken sense of honor?
Broadly, one might hint at rebellions sternly repressed, at doubts and
misgivings, secret tears, agonizings of spirit that affected Lee's flesh
during the next week till her roses paled, eyes grew dark and heavy.
Not that she was altogether unhappy. A woman's life is her feelings, and
if they be sufficiently intense she obtains from their exercise a
certain mournful satisfaction--akin, no doubt, if a little paler, to the
ecstasies of a martyr. But into these innermost recesses, innocent
springs of the woman soul whence flow endless capacities for devotion
and self-sacrifice, into these it is not given to the eternally
masculine to enter. Accordingly, during the following week Gordon
perceived only a surface resignation that manifested itself toward him
in a quiet, sisterly manner.
A blunt male, his psychology was much more simple, fluctuating between
desperation, depression, determination, and despair, the composite of
which showed on the surface as a decided case of the sulks. Yes, it has
to be set down that he followed the customary and unheroic masculine
precedent, returning for Lee's sisterly solicitude more than the average
brotherly brusqueness.
Nature having neglected to insert a compensating balance in the feelings
of the eternally masculine, the poor fellow was utterly miserable.
Despite the fact that, up to a week ago, he had regarded Lee with
neutral friendliness, he now desired more desperately than ever to place
her in a certain Java forest adorned with the regalia of a honeymoon.
What is more to the point, under his sulks he was determined to do it.
Summing them, he sulked and she grieved up to the moment that a _mozo_
rode in, one day, with a package from Ramon.
Though it held only a single flower, she easily read the message, "May I
come?" and though she returned a single line, "I'm coming to see Isabel
next week," the flower had done its work.
The concrete fact behind its bloom emerged from mists of procrastination
and stared her boldly in the face. Its reflection set such misery in her
eyes that, without understanding, Gordon's sulks gave place to pity.
Bull, who knew even less, was moved to send a _mozo_ with a note to the
widow.
Straight to the point the epistle ran:
Dear Ma'am,--The young man, he's a-moping like a moulting
chicken an' Miss Lee's that peaked and pale and down-hearted
you'd hardly know her. T'other day a _mozo_ brought her some
sort of a package from Ramon, and ever since she's looked
wild-eyed and scared as a canary in fear of a cat. There's
something queer going on. It wouldn't take you more'n a minute
to find it out, and you owe us about a dozen visits, anyway.
Couldn't you take a day off and come?
She came, of course, the good, kind soul, with Betty, under guard of
Terrubio and the bandit reputation which gained so much from his weird
eyes. The gods and goddesses willed it that they fell in with Gordon
returning to the _hacienda_ at the close of his day's work, and the
widow seized the opportunity like a skilful general. After permitting
Betty and Terrubio to ride on beyond earshot over the slopes that were
dyed a glowing apricot by the low sun, she opened on Gordon.
"Now tell me all about it, young man."
He looked at her, surprised, then laughed. "You mean all that I would
have said if I hadn't been ordered home that morning? All right. Of
course I don't have to tell you that I love you madly, and if it wasn't
for the fact that Bull would wring my neck, I should propose at once.
Really--"
"Nice boy!" She laughed merrily. "To comfort your poor mother. It was
simply disgraceful the way you flirted with me, almost compromised me
with my own offspring. 'I was just ashamed of your dreadful behavior,
mama,' Betty told me, afterward, 'trying to take poor Lee's beau from
her.' Nevertheless, I found it very encouraging."
"My mother?" He achieved an excellent example of that species of
cachinnation known as the "horse laugh." Then, with sincerity of accent
and feeling that caused her a little blush, he ran on: "My mother,
madam, is more than twenty-eight. Yes, I said twenty-eight. Add to that
eyes as clear and young as--"
"Make it Lee's."
"As Betty's. A fine, soft skin, pretty nose, figure--um! just right.
Why--"
"Yes! yes!" She held up her hand, laughing. "But we mustn't waste time.
You know I'm on your side. Tell me--what happened?"
"That's easy--she's engaged herself to Ramon."
"What?" Her shriek of horror and surprise caused Betty and Terrubio to
look back. Her next question showed the keenness of her intuition. "Why,
whatever did _you_ do to her?"
He told--of his anger, jealousy, pique, attempt to soothe his ruffled
vanity by flirting with Felicia. He told all with candor and humorous
insight into his own feelings that robbed the narrative of conceit. He
told even of the kiss and that Lee had seen it. "Though I don't see how
that could have anything to do with her engagement, for she announced it
the next second."
"She sent him off within the next hour--with only a kiss of her
hand--hasn't seen him since--nor communicated with him till the other
day--has looked like a frightened bird ever since." She told off the
items with amused contempt. "How stupid men are! Why, it is plain as
day. He asked her to marry him, yes, on the way. How could she escape
after the way she had flirted? But she had either refused or held him
off. But when she saw you kiss--"
"My God!" It burst on him. "What a fool I am! Why did I--"
"Don't blame, yourself. She was more in fault. The question is--not what
is done, but what to do."
"I had thought, at first, of quitting this to join Valles. It would be
lots of fun and I was so darned mad--"
"And leave _her_ to _him_?" She looked a little scornful. "Why--"
But he cut in. "You bet I won't! He'll never marry her--if I have to
carry her off."
"And I'd help you do it," she warmly declared. "At present Ramon is all
right, and if you could put up, like preserves, so he'd keep, it
wouldn't be so bad. Yes, he's all right--but, so are the young of any
kind, a lamb or kid, little frog, tiny snake, and there's nothing cuter
in the whole world than a baby pig. But after it grows up--good Lord
deliver us!
"And it's the same with Mexicans. They are the prettiest babies; nice
young men. Ramon, with his fine color and wonderful eyes, is too
handsome to live just now. But after a while he'll grow stout and lazy
from over-feeding and acquire pimples and blotches till his face looks
like a scorched hide. Right now he's so romantic he'd twang a guitar all
night under Lee's window. After a while she wouldn't be able to sleep
for his snores. Now he'd fly at her bidding. Later, she'd fly at his.
She would live behind bars while she was young; go without love in her
middle age, be tyrannized and bulldozed all the time."
"But do you think she would _really_ do it?"
"Indeed, yes! She's highly idealistic, and was trained by her father in
the old ideas. Now that she has given her word, it will take wild horses
to pull her from it--or wild men."
After a sidelong glance that gave her the hard glint of his eyes above
the firm mouth, set jaw, she went on, with a little satisfied nod: "Now
listen! Ramon will be easier to handle. Being Mexican, he's sensitive as
a tarantula, irritable as a scorpion, jealous as a cat. Now that she's
promised, he will look upon her as his, body and soul, and if her glance
so much as strays in any one else's direction, he'll be ready to kill.
It ought to be quite easy to provoke him to the point where he will
either break the engagement or give her cause. In other words, you must
force him to play your hand."
She continued, with a little deprecatory laugh: "I know it's a low-down
trick, but it may stave off something worse. Before he would let Lee
marry Ramon, I feel sure Mr. Perrin would kill him."
A mischievous grin broke up Gordon's grimness. "So we are not altogether
disinterested. We could never stand to see Bull get in bad."
She laughed softly, happily, looking away, and lapsed into silence which
endured while they rode up and over the last slope that laid the
_hacienda_ at their feet.
Its walls and courts, _patio_, painted adobes, lay, a small city of gold
magnificently blazoned by the rich red brush of the setting sun. The
glossy crests of the shading cottonwoods flamed a deep apricot under a
sky that spread its glories of saffron, and cinnabar purple, and umber,
down over the horizon. All about them the pastures laid an undulating
carpet, violet in the hollows, crimson on the hills. From the stubby
chimneys soft smoke pennons trailed away till lost in the smoldering
dusk of the east. Up through the clear air came a soft cooing of woman
voices broken by laughter, low, sweet, infinitely wild.
The widow lowered her voice in harmony with the peace of it all. "It is
a great prize."