During the journey to Toledo Catalina stared sulkily out of the window
or slept with her head against the side of the car. She ignored Over’s
attempts to converse until, with chilling dignity, he retired to the
opposite end of the compartment and wondered how he could have thought
of love in connection with a bad-tempered child. He was delighted at the
prospect of reunion with the orthodox Moultons, and understood something
of their serene contempt for originality. It is true that Catalina
asleep, with the deep vermilion on her cheeks, her tumbled head
drooping, looked so innocent and lovely that she set him to wondering
regretfully why there was no such thing as perfection in woman; and from
thence it was but a step to imagine Catalina with the qualities and
training that would make her the ideal of man. There was no harm in
indulging one’s self in idyllic imagining, by way of variety, Over
concluded; doubtless it was good for the soul.
Whatever the motive, his imagination performed unaccustomed feats during
the drowsy afternoon, while his companion slept and the other occupants
of the car, few in number, smoked and said little. It pictured Catalina
ten years hence; she would then be thirty-three, an age he had always
found sympathetic in woman; she would have seen the world, have adapted
herself to many new conditions, and in the process learned self-control,
pared off the jagged edges of her egoism, and supplemented her beauty
with a distinction of manner and style that would compel the homage of
the best societies of the world.
He had seen what she was capable of, and he suspected that she was
ambitious. It was her love of solitude and dislike of mere men and women
that had swathed her so deeply in her crudities; but if she carried out
her intention of living for some years in England and Europe, and
cultivated the right sort of people, the transformation was almost
certain. Perhaps it would be worth while to ask his mother to take care
of her in England. Lady “Peggy” Over was a clever, warm-hearted woman of
the simple, old-fashioned aristocracy, who offered her sons no
assistance in choosing their wives, and had the broadest tolerance for
the vagaries of young people. With her lively mind and humor she would
win upon Catalina at once, and her complete honesty of nature would
finish the conquest of a girl whose hatred of sham was almost fanatical.
Catalina opened her eyes upon him, half awake, and he asked her,
impulsively: “What is your ambition? What do you want?”
She answered, sleepily, but without hesitation, “To have four children.”
He was too astonished to speak for a moment; then he asked, feebly, “Is
that all?”
“No,” she said, now quite awake. “I want to meet all the most
interesting people in the world, and read the most interesting books,
and show a lot of other people what frauds and useless creatures they
are; but I love children as much as I detest most people, and I’ll never
be contented till I have four. I don’t see why you look so dumfounded!
What is there so remarkable in wanting children?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, soothingly. “Perhaps we can see Toledo in a
moment.”
Mr. Moulton met them at the station. His face was flushed and his manner
perturbed, but he shook their hands cordially and protested that he had
never been so glad to lay eyes on any one.
“Let us walk up,” said Catalina, and she strode on ahead. The men
followed, Mr. Moulton talking with nervous volubility.
“Of course I did not blame you, my dear Catalina,” he reiterated. “Such
a contretemps in Spain is easy enough. Mrs. Moulton is still a little
upset, but you know what—er—invalids are, and I beg you to be patient—”
“It won’t worry me in the least. But why this change of front? Why
didn’t you come to Baeza?”
“That wretched peasant saw us as I was craning my neck looking for you,
and reached the train in three bounds. Of course, we were safe in the
first-class carriage, and at Alcazar I had a brilliant idea. We drove to
the hotel, as usual, with all our baggage, and that mountebank—I shall
never pronounce his impious name—supposed we were settled for the night.
After dinner I told the landlord—through the kind medium of a Frenchman
who spoke both English and Spanish—that, being much annoyed by this
creature, we had determined to change our itinerary and go direct to
Madrid where we could call upon our minister to protect us. We then took
the night train and were under way a good hour before it was time for
the man to appear with his guitar. I even bought tickets for Madrid, and
as we changed cars at midnight we were practically unobserved. We are
very comfortable, and are in time for a grand fête.”
“How is Lydia?” Catalina asked, dryly.
“The poor child is very nervous, but most thankful to be rid of the man.
By-the-way, I telegraphed as soon as I arrived in Toledo.”
“This is Spain,” said Over.
The hint of Mrs. Moulton’s displeasure had fallen on heedless ears. They
were crossing the Alcantara Bridge that leads through the ancient
gateway of the same name up to one of the most beautiful cities to look
upon in the world. Toledo, the lofty outpost of the range of mountains
behind the raging Tagus, is an almost perpendicular mass of rock on all
sides but one, its uneven plateau crowded with palaces and churches,
tiny plazas and narrow, winding streets, a mere roof of tiles from the
Alcazar, which stands on its highest point, but from below a wild yet
symmetrical outcropping of the rock itself. Founded, so runs the legend,
by a son of Noah, certainly the ancient capital of the Goths and the
scene of much that was terrible and romantic in their history, a
stronghold of the Moors, who left here as elsewhere their indelible
imprint, and later of the sovereigns of Castile, equally inaccessible
from the vega and the defile of the Tagus, it was one of the most
impregnable cities in history so long as a man was left to dispute the
gates on the steep road rising from the plain. It is to-day a
sarcophagus of ancient history, compact, isolated, little disturbed by
the outer world, yet with an intense and vivid life of its own.
Catalina hung over the bridge and stared down into the rocky gorge where
the river had torn its way, and soldiers of every nation of the ancient
world had been hurled, cursing and shrieking and praying, from the
beetling heights above. Impervious to Mr. Moulton’s kindly hints, she
led them through the old streets of the Moors, streets so narrow they
were obliged to walk like stalking Indians, but with beautiful old
balconied houses on either side, and glimpses of luxurious patio within;
not pausing before the broad gray front of the hotel until the trio of
cousins had awaited her some fifty minutes.
Mrs. Moulton was so far the reverse of a cruel and vicious woman that
she had been, for the good of her soul, too amiable and self-sacrificing
for at least thirty years of her life. Not fine enough to have developed
loveliness of character, there had, perhaps, been too few opportunities
for reaction, or, if occurring, they had been conscientiously stifled. A
good woman, but not of the most distinguished fibre, the effacement of
self for the few she loved had been but a higher order of selfishness,
and when for the first time in her life a positive hatred possessed her
it found her without that greatness which ignores and foregoes revenge.
Catalina, it must be confessed, would have tried the patience of far
more saintly characters than Mrs. Moulton, and when to a natural
antipathy was added the daily jarring of long-tried nerves the wonder
was that the crisis did not come sooner.
But Mrs. Moulton was accustomed to self-control and to the exercise of
the average amount of Christianity. Moreover, she had her standards of
conduct, and held all exhibitions of feeling to be vulgar. Therefore, in
spite of her growing and morbid desire to humble Catalina, she might
have forborne to force an issue, and perhaps, had circumstances favored
the alien, have grimly, however unwillingly, triumphed once more over
self.
But these last days had unravelled her nerves. To passionate sympathy
for her pale and persecuted daughter, misled in the first instance by
the daily example of a barbarian, had recently been added a night of
hideous discomfort, when, not one of the four speaking a language but
their useless own, and without the invaluable Baedeker, they had fled
from a ridiculous peasant, changing trains at midnight, waiting hours at
way-stations, arriving at Toledo in the gray, cold dawn, hungry,
worried, exhausted, to find neither omnibus nor cab at the station.
As Mrs. Moulton toiled up the steep road through the carven gates of
terrible and romantic memory, she had heartily wished that modern
enterprise had blown up the rock with dynamite or run an elevator from
the Tagus. It was then that her hatred of Catalina—who at least with her
knowledge of foreign languages had been an acceptable courier—became an
obsession, and she could have shrieked it out like any common virago.
The emotional wave had receded, but left a dark and poisonous deposit
behind.
It was easy to convince herself that Catalina had lost the train at
Albacete on purpose. When her husband had received Captain Over’s
telegram she had assumed that the Englishman had persuaded the girl to
return, eager, no doubt, to be rid of her. She was not prone to think
evil, and had one of her daughters or the approved young women of her
circle been left with a young man at a way-station for two days and
nights, she might have given way to nerves but never to suspicion. But
as the crowning iniquity of the author of her downfall, it gave her the
opportunity she had coveted, and she burned to take advantage of it.
When Catalina finally announced herself, Mrs. Moulton was standing in
the middle of her bedroom and Jane was reading by the window. The latter
nodded as the prodigal entered, and returned to her book.
“Well,” said Catalina, amiably, “how are you all? I am glad you are rid
of the peasant at last. Where is Lydia?” She paused, blinking under the
cold glare of Mrs. Moulton’s eyes. “What is the matter?” she asked,
haughtily. “Cousin Lyman said you were angry, but you must have known
how I was left. I am sorry you didn’t have Baedeker with you.” This was
an unusual concession for Catalina, but something in the bitter and
contemptuous face made her vaguely uneasy.
“You were left on purpose,” said Mrs. Moulton, deliberately.
Catalina made a quick step forward, the breath hissing through her
teeth. She looked capable of physical violence, but Mrs. Moulton
continued in the same cold, even tones:
“You remained behind in order to be alone with Captain Over for two days
and nights. You are not fit to associate with my daughters. You are a
wicked, abandoned creature, and I refuse—I absolutely refuse—to shelter
your amours. If you appeal to my husband I shall tell him to choose
between us.”
Catalina fell back, staring. Innocent she might be but not ignorant. It
was impossible to mistake the woman’s meaning, and in a flash she
understood that by the evil-minded evil might be read into her
adventure. It was then, however, that she showed herself thoroughbred.
Her anger left her as abruptly as it had come. She drew herself up,
bowed impersonally, and left the room.
Mrs. Moulton, trembling, sank into a chair, and Jane, protesting that
her parent had behaved like an empress, fetched the aromatic salts. But
Mrs. Moulton, having unburdened her hate, had parted with its sustaining
power, and was flat and cowed in the reaction.
“Does it pay?” she demanded again and again. “Does it pay?”