During these weeks of Sarella's instruction she achieved something which
to her seemed a greater triumph than her succession of cumulative
triumphs in the matters of trousseau and of furniture. She persuaded Don
Joaquin to buy a motor-car!
She would not have succeeded in this attempt but for certain
circumstances which in reality robbed her success of some of its
triumph. In the first place, the machine was not a new one; in the
second, Don Joaquin took it instead of a debt which he did not think
likely to be paid. Then also he had arrived at the conclusion that so
many long rides as Sarella's frequent journeys to Maxwell involved, were
likely to prove costly. They took a good deal out of the horses, even
without accidents occurring, and an accident had nearly occurred which
would have very largely reduced the value of one of the best of his
horses--the one, as it happened, best fitted for carrying a lady.
Sarella all but let the horse down on a piece of ragged, stony road: Don
Joaquin being himself at her elbow and watchful, had just succeeded in
averting the accident; but lover as he was, he was able to see that
Sarella would never be a horse-woman. She disliked riding, and he was
not such a tyrant as to insist on her doing a thing she never would do
well, and had no pleasure in doing. On the whole, he made up his mind
that it would be more economical to take this second-hand car in
settlement of a bad debt than continue running frequent risks of injury
to his horses.
The acquisition of the car made it possible to shorten the period of
these journeys to Maxwell; it did not require a night's rest, and the
trip itself was much more rapidly accomplished.
The period of Sarella's instruction was not one of idleness on Gore's
part, in reference to Mariquita. It seemed to him that he really was
making some advance. He saw much more of her than used to be the case.
She was now accustomed to chance meetings with him, or what she took for
chance meetings, and did not make hasty escape from them, or treat him
during them with reserve. They were, in fact, friends and almost
confidential friends; but if Gore had continued as wise as he had been
when discussing the situation with her father, he would have been able
to see that it did not amount to more than that; that they were friends
indeed because Mariquita was wholly free from any suspicion that more
than that could come of it. She had simply come to a settled opinion
that he was nice, a kind man, immensely pleasanter as a companion than
any man she had known before, a trustworthy friend who could tell her of
much whereof she had been ignorant. She began in a fashion to know "his
people," too; and he saw with extreme pleasure that she was interested
in them. That was natural enough. She knew almost nobody; as a grown-up
woman, had really known none of her own sex till Sarella came; it would
have been strange if she had not heard with interest about women whose
portraits were so affectionately drawn for her, who, she could easily
discern, were pleasant and refined, cheerful, bright, amusing, and kind,
too; cordial, friendly people.
All the same, Gore's talk of his family did connote a great advance in
intimacy with Mariquita. He seemed to assume that she might know them
herself, and she gathered the notion that when he had bought a range,
some of them would come out and live with him, so that she said nothing
to contradict a possibility that he had after all only implied. Gore,
meanwhile, with no suspicion of her idea that his sisters might come out
to visit him, and noting with great satisfaction that she never
contradicted his hints and hopes that they might all meet, attached more
importance to it than he ought. Perhaps he built more hope on this than
on any one thing besides. He was fully aware that in all their
intercourse there was no breath of flirtation. But he could not picture
Mariquita flirting, and did not want to picture it. Meanwhile their
intercourse was daily growing to an intimacy, or he took it for such.
He did not sufficiently weigh the fact that of herself she said little.
She was most ready to be interested in all he told her of himself, his
previous life, his friends; but of her own real life, which was inward
and apart from the few events of her experience, she did not speak. This
did not strike him as reserve, for those who show a warm, friendly
interest in others do not seem reserved.
Gore never startled her by gallantry or compliments; his sympathy and
admiration were too respectful for compliment, and a certain instinct
warned him that gallantry would have perplexed and disconcerted her.
None the less, he believed that he was making progress, and the course
of it was full of beautiful and happy moments. So things went on, with,
as Gore thought, sure though not rapid pace. He was too much in earnest
to risk haste, and also too happy in the present to make blundering
clutches at the future. Then with brutal suddenness Don Joaquin
intervened.