It was a little after sunrise when Moreno hastily left his house;
Canterac had sent him an urgent message, asking him to call. The
Frenchman was pacing nervously up and down. He wore high boots and
riding breeches; his cartridge belt, revolver and coat were lying on a
chair. Drops of water from his morning ablutions still trickled down his
chest, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled to above his elbows. His hard,
dictatorial expression became harsher still when he drew his eyebrows
together, as though some thought or other were causing him both anger
and pain.
Moreno noticed that on all the pieces of furniture and in all the
corners there were numerous packages carefully wrapped in tissue paper,
tied with delicate ribbon, and sealed.
It was easy to guess that the engineer had slept badly, tormented
perhaps by whatever it was that he wished to impart to Moreno.
The government employee sat down and prepared to listen. Canterac
remained standing, so as to be free to walk up and down when his
restlessness overcame him.
“This Pirovani fellow, for all his vulgarity, is always getting ahead of
me ... just because he is rich!”
Canterac pointed to the packages.
“There are the perfumes we ordered from Buenos Aires. Perfectly useless
purchase! The Italian got his before I did.”
Moreno made haste to exonerate himself. He had done everything he could
to get the order sent down in time. But the other order had in some
mysterious way come sooner. Perhaps the Italian had sent a messenger to
the capital for it....
Canterac, in spite of his disappointment, didn’t want to appear
ill-natured. He accepted Moreno’s excuses, and slapped him on the back
in friendly fashion.
“I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, my dear fellow. I have a scheme I
want to consult you about. Something must be done to put this intriguing
Italian, who has the cheek to get in my way, back in his proper
place.... All these people around here seem to think themselves our
equals as though all distinctions between them and us had been
suppressed. Why I shouldn’t be surprised if that fellow, in spite of the
fact that he takes his orders from me, thought himself my superior ...
just because he has money!”
Canterac smiled with a cruel gleam in his eyes and went on,
“But I’ll help him get rid of some of it! Up to the present I’ve been
willing to approve officially of his contract work. But I’m not going to
any more and he’ll lose by it. He’ll have to break his agreement and get
out of here....”
The engineer came close to Moreno and began speaking in a low tone as
though afraid of being heard.
“I want to do something unique, something that this uneducated immigrant
would never be able to think of. It just occurred to me last night. At
first I thought it was a crazy idea, but after I’d spent a few hours
thinking it over I decided it was something really original and worth
doing ... if it is only possible to carry it out.... Pirovani offered
the _marquesa_ a house.... Well, I shall offer her a park ... a park
that I’ll make here in the middle of this Patagonian desert ... what do
you think of my idea, Moreno?”
The government employee was listening with profound interest and
astonishment, but he didn’t know what to reply. He needed further
explanations. So Canterac continued:
“In this park I shall give a _fiesta_, a garden party in honor of the
_marquesa_. I shall even allow myself the pleasure of inviting this rich
rustic, just by way of taking vengeance on him by making him squirm with
envy. You, my dear fellow, are to direct everything. Here are full
instructions. I wrote them out last night, when I found there was no use
trying to sleep.”
Moreno took the papers Canterac was handing over to him, but instead of
reading them looked curiously at the engineer, as though entertaining
serious doubts of his sanity.
“I understand your astonishment.... Of course it will cost a lot! But
what of it? You can spend all you want. I’ve just received several
thousand _pesos_ that I expected to remit to Paris. But I’d rather give
the _marquesa_ a surprise, and my park will certainly be that.... And I
can always earn more money. I have every confidence in the future.”
Canterac spoke with entire good faith; it was easy enough to hear in
his tone the soaring optimism of the lover.
The next day was Sunday, and Watson, about midday, went to Pirovani’s
former home to see Torre Bianca. Something had come up in connection
with the canal works that he wished to discuss with the _marqués_,
especially since Robledo was away, having gone up to Buenos Aires to get
extended credit from the banks for his work, and to sell some of the
property he owned in the central pampas.
The young man went up the outside stairway with a certain trepidation,
keeping an anxious eye on the windows. He knocked cautiously as though
he particularly desired not to be heard by the other inhabitants of the
house, and smiled with relief when Sebastiana came to the door.
“The master is not at home, he went with don Canterac to Fuerte
Sarmiento this morning. And how is don Robledo?”
Like the other natives of this part of the continent, the half-breed
prefixed “don” to family and given names indiscriminately.
Watson was just leaving when the hangings of the reception room were
pushed aside by a white hand at the base of which shone a jewelled wrist
watch. The hand was beckoning, and the next instant Elena herself
appeared, urging Watson with words and smiles to come in. The young man
felt too constrained by her presence to dare refuse and he followed his
hostess into the drawing-room, where he sat with lowered eyes in
embarrassed silence.
“At last the pleasure of seeing you in my house,” she exclaimed. “You
must really consider me a very disagreeable sort of person, you care so
little about seeing me!”
Richard Watson proffered excuses. He had come there twice before with
Robledo. It was impossible for him to come every evening like the
others. He got up earlier than they did. As he was the junior partner
naturally he took on some of the more unpleasant responsibilities, such
as getting to the works in good time to see that everything started off
properly in the morning....
But Elena was not interested in these explanations which were merely
obstructing the conversation. There was something she wanted to say,
that she must say at once.
“Perhaps people have spoken ill of me to you. Why deny it? It isn’t
strange that it should be so. Women are always exposed to that sort of
thing. Whenever we resist certain advances we run the risk of making an
enemy!”
Elena’s tone was one of gentle ingenuousness as she gave voice to these
complaints. One might have thought her the victim of the most unjust
persecution. With a motion that brought her close to Richard she
addressed him without any semblance of reserve, as though they were
tried comrades. The youth meanwhile began to be uneasily aware of the
fragrance and close proximity of this beautiful woman.
“I am so unfortunate, Watson,” she was saying. “I wanted the opportunity
to talk to you about this, and I am so glad I can talk to you now for a
moment alone ... for probably this will never happen again. You see me
surrounded by men who pay court to me, and I suppose you think I flirt
with them. But do you know why? To make myself dizzy and numb, so as not
to be so painfully conscious of the emptiness of my life. For years I
have felt that I was alone ... as though there were no other human being
in the world except myself!”
Watson had forgotten his uneasiness of a few moments ago. Listening to
her now with credulous interest, he accepted all that she said.
“But ... your husband?...”
There was an ironic gleam in her eyes as he put this innocent question.
But she restrained her cynicism and replied, sadly,
“Oh, why talk of him? He is a very good man, but he is not the husband a
woman such as I should have.... He has never understood me. Don’t you
see that he is weak, that he can never conquer in the battle of life?
And I was born for greater things ... yet here I am, an exile in this
barbarous land, and through his fault!”
With a glow in her eyes that might have come from intense feeling she
looked at the young American who lowered his eyes not knowing what to
say; then she added thoughtfully,
“Can’t you believe that a man who was young and energetic might have
gone very far with a woman such as I to inspire him?”
Surprised, young Watson glanced up at her; then he lowered his eyes
again to her feet as though afraid to look at her. Elena smiled to
herself.... Then she murmured softly,
“But life is always like that! The men we don’t want pursue us, and
those who really arouse our interest always try to escape us!”
At these words the young man raised his eyes and looked at his hostess
without the slightest suggestion of timidity but with a questioning
expression. What did she mean?... He did not know life at first hand;
and, being a man of action, he cared very little for reading and had
never, from books, caught glimpses of what life was really like. But he
kept deep in his memory the observations made in certain rather simple
and ingenuous novels of abundant adventure, that he had read on railway
journeys and sea voyages, by way of escaping tedium. Besides this he had
seen a hundred or more “movie” stories, so that, in films as well as in
the pages of the novels he had read, he had become familiar with the
“fatal charmer” type of woman, the “vamp,” the creature who is beautiful
in body and of a malicious and trouble-making soul, tempting men to
leave the ways of honor, troubling the domestic and gently monotonous
happiness which every young man should seek in marriage and family life.
Was the _marquesa_ perhaps one of these “vamps?”... Robledo certainly
didn’t seem to have much use for her....
But he did not stop there. He went on to think of all the beautiful
women who are calumnied and persecuted--also in the movies--and who,
because of the envy they inspire are forced to go through sufferings
which had more than once brought tears to his eyes as he watched the
film roll on. Yes, there must be victims such as these in the real
world too ... why else should there be so many of them on the screen?
He was looking searchingly at Elena trying to discover which category
she belonged to, the “fatal charmers” or the persecuted victims of
malice and envy; but she meanwhile lowered her eyes, and said gently,
“It hurt me very much to see that you avoided me. Surrounded as I am by
selfish and frightfully materialistic men, I need a friendship that is
pure and disinterested, I want a companion who will appreciate me for my
real self, my soul, and not for whatever physical charms I may possess!”
Richard Watson nodded involuntarily. How could he help approving such
words?... And as she went on talking he went on making up his mind about
her....
“I always thought that you might have been this ideal friend, for you
look so good--but, alas! you dislike me, you run away from me because
you think that I am one of those dangerous women of whom there are so
many in the world ... and really I am nothing worse than unhappy!”
In the vehemence of his protest Richard stood up abruptly. No! He had
never disliked her, nor wished to run away.... He had always felt the
most profound respect for the wife of his associate, Torre Bianca. But
he confessed that up to that moment he had not known her well.
“There is nothing strange about that. Sometimes people have a speaking
acquaintance with some one for years and years, and think they know him
... and suddenly they come really to see into this person’s soul, and
discover that he is very different from what they had imagined. For
instance, after what you have just said, I....”
He stopped; but his silence and the expression in his eyes gave Elena
some idea of the impression her words had produced on him. She too stood
up, and coming near him gave him her hand.
“Then ... you are going to be my friend?... the friend I need so much in
order to go living?... You are going to advise me, to help me?”
Troubled by her glance the young man stammered a few confused words. But
he took her hand and pressed it. Elena welcomed this reply to her
request with childish delight.
“How happy I am! You will come to see me every day? You will go out
riding with me, you will keep off those tiresome suitors of mine who
keep following me around?”
Watson was somewhat surprised by the _marquesa’s_ exuberant joy. He
hadn’t promised any of these things, as a matter of fact; but he didn’t
dare try to correct his hostess’s impression.
As though she had not the slightest doubt that he would accompany her on
her rides she burst out laughing, and said, with a mischievous gleam in
her eye,
“And when we go out riding together, you will show me how to throw the
lassoo, won’t you? I want so much to learn that little
accomplishment....”
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when she saw how inopportune
they were; for Watson turned his eyes away from her, and a shadow passed
over his face, the shadow cast perhaps by a procession of memories....
Instinctively she knew that, most vivid of the images before him was
that of a girl throwing the lariat, and trying to teach him how to do
it, one golden afternoon, at the far end of a green meadow. To dispel
the picture, Elena came close to him and put both hands on the lapels of
his blouse. She wanted apparently to see her own reflection in his eyes,
while in her own she seemed to be trying to concentrate all her powers
of seduction.
“We are really friends?” she murmured. “Friends for good and all?
Friends who can trust one another beyond all calumny and envy?”
At the magic of her touch and the fragrance she exhaled, the memory of
the river bank and his happy hours with Celinda grew faint, vanished....
There was something within him nevertheless which struggled to resist
the influence that was trying to envelope him. He thought for a moment
of those fatal women he had read about, and he moved his head as though
about to shake it.... “No!” He raised his hands to his blouse lapels to
detach her hands from them. But at the contact of his fingers with the
soft smooth skin of her hands, he stopped dismayed; and then very gently
he caressed them. And when he looked into Elena’s eyes, that were
imploring a reply to her question, he merely nodded.... “Yes!”
From that day on Watson became the _marquesa’s_ only escort on her
rides.
In front of Pirovani’s former residence the half-breed in charge of the
contractor’s stables would take up his stand, holding the bridle of a
white mare on which was a side-saddle. Then Richard would appear mounted
on his horse. The _marquesa_, in riding costume, was coming down the
steps, while Pirovani, as though he had been waiting in hiding for her
arrival, would rush up to her to offer his greetings, and suggest that
he too knew how to ride.
But the “_señora marquesa_” would have none of his company.
“You have business to attend to, señor Pirovani. My husband says that
you’ve been away a good deal lately, and I don’t like to hear that! The
señor Watson has more free time now and he is going with me....”
In time the Italian came to accept these words with a certain pleasure.
What an interest the _marquesa_ took in his work! And could she, after
all, show any more clearly how much all that concerned him was important
to her? Besides, there was no particular reason to be jealous of Watson.
Everyone always thought of him as engaged to the Rojas girl ... so,
unwillingly enough, Pirovani would retire and betake himself to the dam.
At other times, when Elena was already mounted, Canterac would come
riding down the street. Wouldn’t she let him accompany her? But Elena
was protesting, making signs that meant “no” with her riding-whip.
“But I’ve told you several times that I don’t want any escort but Mr.
Watson,” she told him quite frankly one morning. “Do go along, my dear
captain, and finish up that grand surprise that you are getting ready
for me.”
Canterac too was disposed to accept Elena’s choice of the American youth
as an escort without too much bitterness. So long as it wasn’t Pirovani!
He watched the two riders move down the road, and although he felt
annoyed and disheartened as he always did when Elena opposed his
desires, he tried to conceal it, and stopped in at Moreno’s.
The latter was reading a novel in front of the open window; as soon as
he caught sight of Canterac he leaned out and began a report on the work
in the park.
Canterac, from his horse, leaned forward, listening with grave attention
to the explanations that were pouring out of the window opening.
“I got Pirovani’s men away from him by offering them double pay. And I
got hold of all the carts he had contracted to get, and all those in
Fuerte Sarmiento. This will delay the work at the dam a little. But both
you and Pirovani will have to find some way of making up for lost time.”
Thirty miles down the river, in a somewhat swampy bit of ground, where
the freshets had provided water enough for a vigorous growth of poplars
and other trees, Canterac’s men were hard at work carrying out his plans
for the _marquesa’s_ park. The peons were removing the earth from the
tree roots which they cut away, bending down the trees until they fell
on the ox carts waiting to drag them slowly back up the river bank to
the dam. It took a whole day to make the journey to La Presa.
“It’s a tremendous job, and it’s going to be a long one,” Moreno was
saying. “I went down there yesterday to see for myself how things are
getting on, and there’s no doubt about it, those men are earning their
pay.”
Near the Presa, in a level spot barren of all vegetation close to the
river, other peons were digging ditches. As soon as the carts arrived,
they lifted off the trees, and planted them in the holes prepared for
them, heaping up the earth around them to keep the trees upright.
“The trees are only a few yards high, but they will be very effective in
the desert where there are no others to compare them with. You can be
sure of one thing captain! The whole settlement will be struck dumb with
amazement when they see what you have done. Pirovani could certainly
never have planned all that!”
Canterac heartily approved of the last words.
“You are going to spend every cent of your several thousand _pesos_,”
Moreno went on. “It may even happen that you’ll run short of money
before you get through. But you’ll have your park! Of course there won’t
be any cost in keeping it up because a few days after the _fiesta_ the
trees will be withered and dead.”
And the government employee laughed at the uselessness of this enormous
expenditure. At one and the same moment he pitied and admired the
engineer.
Meanwhile Elena and Watson were riding slowly along the river bank. The
_marquesa_ had taken possession of one of his hands, and she was talking
affectionately to him, with an air of maternal interest and tenderness.
“From what you tell me, Ricardo, it is evident that Robledo is managing
the whole business, and that you are after all nothing but an employee
of his.... I have no right to intrude on your affairs, but, in spite of
myself, everything that concerns you interests me so much! I don’t say
that he is not quite fair in his division of the earnings ... no!
Robledo is the sort of man who is always _correct_ in his dealings. But
just the same, I think he takes advantage of the fact that you are
younger. You will have to emancipate yourself from his control or you
will never go as far as your ability makes me expect you to go ... but
you’ll have to make your way alone, without guardians to check you....”
Watson had defended his partner against Elena’s first insinuations; but
now with eyebrows drawn close together and a worried expression, he let
her go on without offering a word of protest.
The two were swaying in their saddles while they talked, yielding to the
motions of their horses. As they rode along they noticed another rider
appear and then disappear in the distance ahead of them. This occurred
several times. The rider zigzagging thus capriciously from river bank to
the sand dunes that the spring floods had formed some distance from the
river was no other than Celinda Rojas.
Elena was the first to mention what both were well aware of.
“I think she is looking for someone,” she said maliciously.
Richard looked in the direction to which she was pointing, and his
expression showed plainly enough that he was perturbed.
“It is the _señorita_ de Rojas,” he said, blushing slightly. “She’s
still nothing but a kid! I know her quite well. She is like a younger
sister to me, or rather, a pal.... You don’t for a moment imagine....”
But Elena was smiling ironically as though she did not believe what he
was saying; and finally in a tone so cold that it hurt the youth’s
feelings, she commanded--
“Go and speak to her, otherwise she will be following and watching us
all the afternoon. Then come back to me!”
Obediently the young man turned his horse into the rough _matorral_
brush that crackled like dry wood under his horse’s hoofs.
Celinda at once stopped her cavortings in the distance and galloped to
meet him, shaking her finger at him as she came near, and looking as
like an offended school-teacher as she could. With tremendous
seriousness she inquired,
“Haven’t I told you more than a hundred times, Mr. Watson, that I didn’t
want to see you with ... that woman? Besides I have been riding
everywhere these last few days without finding you,--and then when at
last I do stumble upon you, I find you in bad company!”
But Richard Watson was no longer the youth she had known. He no longer
greeted her foolish little speeches with an outburst of laughter. On the
contrary he looked offended, though her tone had been a jesting one.
Drily, he replied,
“I shall keep what company I choose, _señorita_. There is, I believe,
nothing more between us than a sincere friendship, in spite of what
people may choose to say. You are not engaged to me, nor do I need to
limit my acquaintance simply to satisfy your whims.”
Celinda was speechless with astonishment. Taking advantage of this fact,
Watson saluted her in a coldly ceremonious fashion, and galloped off in
the direction taken by Elena. But when the girl became convinced that
the young North American was really riding away from her, she angrily
shook her fist in the air; then she broke into supplicating cries,
“Don’t go, _gringuito_, listen don Ricardo! Don’t be angry.... Look!
What I said was just for fun, like the other times....”
But he pretended not to hear; and as he continued riding away from her,
she gathered up the lassoo that hung on the front of the saddle and
swung it, catching the fugitive in the noose, and shouting out with
forced merriment,
“See, disobedient one, now you must come here!”
The thong had fallen over his head with the same precision as always. As
on so many other occasions she drew in the loops, tugging gently at her
prey. But this time Richard took out his knife and angrily cut through
the rope. So quickly did he free himself that Celinda, absorbed in
pulling in the lassoo, nearly fell off her horse when her tugging
suddenly ceased to find any resistance.
Watson rode rapidly away, unwinding from about his shoulders the piece
of rope that had caught him there. He threw the fragment from him and
never once looked back. Celinda meanwhile wound up her lassoo that still
trailed weakly on the ground.
When finally the lacerated end of the rope reached her hands she looked
at it sadly. Tears blurred her sight. But suddenly the rancher’s
daughter looked out towards the dunes where Elena and Richard were
riding, and turned white with anger.
“May the devil carry you away with him, miserable _gringo_! I don’t want
to see you, ever again.... I’ll never throw the noose over you any more!
and if, some day, you want to see me, you’ll have to catch me the way I
used to catch you ... if you can!”
And then, no longer able to conceal from herself the fact that she had
been cruelly treated, the Rojas girl covered her face with her hands.
The sand dunes and the solitary river had so many times seen her
laugh--she did not want them now to see her weep....