Mariquita had been alone a long time when Gore, riding home, came
suddenly upon her.
She was sitting where a clump of trees cast now a shadow, and it was
only in coming round them that he saw her when already very near her.
The ground was soft there, and his horse's hoofs had made scarcely any
sound.
She turned her head, and he saluted her, at the same moment slipping
from the saddle.
"I thought you were far away," she said.
"I have been far away--at Maxwell. It has been a long ride."
"Yes, that is a long way," she said. "But I never go there."
"No? I went to hear Mass."
She was surprised, never having thought that he was a Catholic.
"I did not know you were a Catholic," she told him.
"No wonder! I have been here a month and never been to Mass before."
"It is so far. I never go."
"You _are_ a Catholic, then?"
"Oh, yes; I think all Spaniards are Catholics."
"But not all Americans," Gore suggested smiling.
"No. And of course, we are Americans, my father and I."
"Exactly. No doubt I knew your names, both surname and Christian name,
were Spanish, and I supposed you were of Catholic descent--"
"Only," she interrupted with a quiet matter-of-factness, "you saw we
never went to Mass."
"Perhaps a priest comes here sometimes and gives you Mass."
"No, never. If it were not so very far, I suppose my father would let me
ride down to Maxwell occasionally, at all events. But he would not let
me go alone, and none of the men are Catholics; besides, he would not
wish me to go with one of them; and then it would be necessary to go
down on Saturday and sleep there. Of course, he would not permit that.
But," and she did not smile as she said this, "it must seem strange to
you, who are a Catholic, to think that I, who am one also, should never
hear Mass. Since I left the Convent and came home I do not hear it. That
may scandalize you."
"I shall never be scandalized by you," he answered, also without
smiling.
"That is best," she said. "It is generally foolish to be scandalized,
because we can know so little about each other's case."
She paused a moment, and he thought how little need she could ever have
of any charitable suspension of judgment. He knew well enough by
instinct, that this inability to hear Mass must be the great
disinheritance of her life here on the prairie, her submission to it,
her great obedience.
"But," she went on earnestly, "I hope you will not take any scandal at
my father either--from my saying that he would not permit my going down
to Maxwell and staying there all night on Saturday so as to hear Mass
on Sunday morning. (There is, you know, only one Mass there, and that
very early, because the priest has to go far into the county on the
other side of Maxwell to give another Mass.) We know no family down
there with whom I could stay. He would think it impossible I should stay
with strange people--or in an hotel. Our Spanish ideas would forbid
that."
"Oh, yes; I can fully understand. You need not fear my being so stupid
as to take scandal. I have all my life had enough to do being
scandalized at myself."
"Ah, yes! That is so. One finds that always. Only one knows that God is
more indulgent to one's faults than one has learned to be oneself; that
patience comes so very slowly, and slower still the humility that would
teach one to be never surprised at any fault in oneself."
Gore reverenced her too truly to say, "Any fault would surprise _me_ in
you." He only assented to her words, as if they were plain and cold
matter-of-fact, and let her go on, for he knew she had more to say.
"I would like," she told him, "to finish about my father. Because to
you he may seem just careless. You may think, 'But why should not _he_
take her down to Maxwell and hear Mass himself also?' Coming from the
usual life of Catholics to this life of ours on the prairies, it may
easily occur to you like that. You cannot possibly know--as if you had
read it in a book--a man's life like my father's. He was born far away
from here, out in the desert--in New Mexico. His father baptized
him--just as _he_ baptized me. There was no priest. There was no Mass.
How could he learn to think it a necessary part of life? no one can
learn to think necessary what is impossible. From that desert he came to
this wilderness; very different, but just as empty. No Mass here either,
no priest. How could he be expected to think it necessary to ride far,
far away to find Mass? It would be to him like riding away to find a
picture gallery. He _couldn't_ be away every Saturday and Sunday. That
would not be possible; and what is not possible is no sin. And what is
no sin on three Sundays out of four, or one Sunday out of two, how
should it seem a sin on the other Sunday? I hope you will understand
all that."
"Indeed, yes! I hope you do not think I have been judging your father!
That would be a great impertinence."
"Towards God--yes. That is His business, and no one else understands it
at all. No, I did not think you would have been judging. Only I thought
you might be troubled a little. It is a great loss, my father's and
mine, that we live out here where there is no Mass, and where there are
no Sacraments. But Our Lord does the same things differently. It is not
hard for Him to make up losses."
One thing which struck the girl's hearer was that the grave simplicity
of her tones was never sad. It seemed to him the perfection of
obedience.
"My father," she went on, "is very good. He always tells the truth.
Those who deal in horses are said to tell many lies about them. He never
does. He is very just--to the men, and everybody. And he does not grind
them, nor does he insult them in reproof. He hates laziness and
stupidity, and will not suffer either. Yet he does not gibe in finding
fault nor say things, being master, to which they being servants may not
retort. That makes fault-finding bitter and intolerable. He works very
hard and takes no pleasure. He greatly loved my mother, and was in all
things a true husband. That was a great burden God laid on him--the loss
of her, but he carried it always in silence. You can hardly know all
these things."
Gore saw that she was more observant than he had fancied--that she had
been conscious of criticism in him of her father, and was earnest in
exacting justice for him.
"But," he said, "I shall not forget them now."
"I shall thank you for that," she told him, beginning to move forward
towards the homestead that was full in sight, half a mile away. "And it
will be getting very late. Tea is much later on Sunday, for the men like
to sleep, but it will be time now."
They walked on together, side by side, he leading his horse by the
bridle hung loosely over his shoulder. The horse after its very long
journey of to-day and yesterday was tired out, and only too willing to
go straight to his stable.
They did not now talk much. Don Joaquin, watching them as they came from
the house door, saw that.