Between Mariquita and her father there was little in common except a
partial community of race; in nature and character they were entirely
different. In her the Indian strain had only physical expression, and
that only in the slim suppleness of her frame; she would never grow
stout as do so many Spanish women.
Whereas in her father the Indian blood had effects of character. He was
not merely subtle like a Latin, but had besides the craft and cunning of
an Indian. Yet the cunning seemed only an intensification of the
subtlety, a deeper degree of the same quality and not an added separate
quality. In fact, in him, as in many with the same mixture of race, the
Indian strain and the Spanish were really mingled, not merely joined in
one individual.
Mariquita had, after all, only one quarter Spanish, and one Indian;
whereas with him it was a quarter of half and half. She had, in actual
blood, a whole half that was pure Saxon, for her mother's New England
family was of pure English descent. Yet Mariquita seemed far more purely
Spanish than her father; he himself could trace nothing of her mother in
her, and in her character was nothing Indian but her patience.
From her mother personally she inherited nothing, but through her mother
she had certain characteristics that helped to make her very
incomprehensible to Don Joaquin, though he did not know it.
Gore, who studied her with far more care and interest, because to him
she seemed deeply worth study, did not himself feel compelled to
remember her triple strain of race. For to him she seemed splendidly,
adorably simple. He was far from falling into Sarella's shallow mistake
of calling that simplicity "stupidity"; to him it appeared a sublimation
of purity, rarely noble and fine. That she was book-ignorant he knew, as
well as that she was life-ignorant; but he did not think her
intellectually narrow, even intellectually fallow. Along what roads her
mind moved he could not, by mere study of her, discover; yet he was sure
it did not stagnate without motion or life.
* * * * *
About a month after the arrival of Sarella, one Saturday night at
supper, that young person observed that Mr. Gore's place was vacant.
Mariquita must equally have noted the fact, but she had said nothing.
"Isn't Mr. Gore coming to his supper?" Sarella asked her.
Don Joaquin thought this out of place. His daughter's silence on the
subject had pleased him better.
"I don't know," Mariquita answered, glancing towards her father.
"No," he said; "he has ridden down to Maxwell."
Sometimes one or other of the cowboys would ride down to Maxwell, and
reappear, without question or remark.
"I wonder he did not mention he was going," Sarella complained.
"Of course he mentioned it," Don Joaquin said loudly. "He would not go
without asking me."
"But to us ladies," Sarella persisted, "it would have been better
manners."
"That was not at all necessary," said Don Joaquin; "Mariquita would not
expect it."
"_I_ would, though. It ought to have struck him that one might have a
communication for him. I should have had commissions for him."
It was evident that Sarella had ruffled Don Joaquin, and it was the
first time anyone had seen him annoyed by her.
Next day, after the midday meal, Sarella followed Mariquita out of
doors, and said to her, yawning and laughing.
"Don't you miss Mr. Gore?"
Mariquita answered at once and quite simply:
"Miss him? He was never here till a month ago--"
"Nor was I," Sarella interrupted pouting prettily. "But you'd miss me,
now."
"Only you're not going away."
"You take it for granted I shall stop, then?" (And Sarella looked
complacent.) "That I'm a fixture."
"I never thought of your going away," Mariquita answered, with a formula
rather habitual to her. "Where would you go?"
"I should decide on that when I decided to go." Sarella declared
oracularly. But Mariquita took it with irritating calmness.
"I don't believe you will decide to go," she said with that gravity and
plainness of hers that often irritated Sarella--who liked _badinage_.
"It would be useless."
"Suppose," Sarella suggested, pinching the younger girl's arm playfully,
"suppose I were to think of getting married. Shouldn't I have to go
then?"
"I never thought of that--" Mariquita was beginning, but Sarella pinched
and interrupted her.
"Do you _ever_ think of anything?" she complained sharply.
"Oh, yes, often, of many things."
"What things on earth?" (with sudden inquisitive eagerness.)
"Just my own sort of things," Mariquita answered, without saying whether
"her things" were on earth at all. Sarella pouted again.
"You're not very confidential to a person."
Mariquita weighed the accusation. "Perhaps," she said quietly, "I am not
much used to persons. Since I came home from the convent there was no
other girl here till you came."
"So you're sorry I came!"
"No; glad. I am glad you did that. It is a home for you. And I am sure
my father is glad."
"You think he likes my being here?" And Sarella listened attentively for
the answer.
"Of course. You must see it."
"You think he does not dislike me? He was cross with me last night."
"He did not like you noticing Mr. Gore was away--"
"Of course I noticed it--surely, he could not be jealous of that!"
"I should not think he could be jealous," Mariquita agreed, too readily
to please Sarella. "But I did not think of it. I am sure he does not
dislike you. You cannot think he does."
Sarella was far from thinking it. But she had wanted Mariquita to say
more, and was only partly satisfied.
"_He_ would not like me to go away?" she suggested.
"Oh, no. The contrary."
"Not even if it were advantageous to me?"
"How advantageous?"
"If I were to be going to a home of my own? Going, for instance, to be
married?"
"That would surprise him...."
Sarella was not pleased at this.
"Surprise him! Why should it surprise him that anyone should marry me?"
"There is no reason. Only, he does not imagine that there _is_ someone.
If there is someone, he would suppose you had not been willing to marry
him by your coming here instead."
("Is she stupid or cautious?" Sarella asked herself. "She will say
nothing.")
Mariquita was neither cautious nor stupid. She was only ignorant of
Sarella's purpose, and by no means awake to her father's.
"It is terribly hot out here," Sarella grumbled, "and there is such a
glare. I shall go in and study."