The preparations for the _fandango_ were complete. The men and women of
the household, under Juan Ramon's supervision, had worked hard since
sunrise, stringing gayly colored lanterns and arranging tables and
chairs, palms and potted flowers and shrubs in the _patio_. It was close
on to five o'clock and they now rested in the _patio_ in the shade of
its arcades, smoking cigarettes and sipping black coffee, and chatting
and laughing as they viewed with satisfaction the results of their
handiwork. The day gave promise of a perfect night. It was to be a
typical Spanish _fiesta_, and in order that the illusion might be
complete, both the Whites and the Indians were to appear in their
national costumes. All the leading Spanish families of the town and the
neighborhood would be present. Not an invitation had been refused.
Captain Forest had agreed to take tea with Blanch in the garden, and,
true to his word, he appeared punctually, almost on the minute. The
pretty Rosita, the only one of the household excepting Señora Fernandez
and Juan Ramon who understood and spoke English after a fashion,
withdrew reluctantly after depositing her tray containing tea and
_tortillas_ upon the table. She adored the beautiful _Americana_, and
had been doing a great deal of thinking of late. The reason for her
coming might not be Don Felipe at all, but Captain Forest, the grand
Señor. Who could say? The ways of the Americano, the _gringo_, were so
different from theirs. Everything they did was exactly opposite to their
way of thinking and doing things. No well-bred, unmarried Spanish woman
would dare take tea alone with a man unless they were engaged.
The signs of autumn were visible on every hand. The long, languid,
summer travail had ceased and the season of dreams begun. Though the sky
was a clear steel-blue overhead, the horizon was veiled in a thin blue
haze into which the landscape and distant objects seemed to fade and
lose themselves. Filmy threads of gossamer floated through the air,
suffused with a soft golden glow. Most of the birds had ceased to sing
and the drone of insects became less persistent, as if fearful to
disturb the hush and calm that pervaded the land.
Captain Forest noticed, as he seated himself at the table opposite
Blanch, that the golden glow in her hair was almost a perfect match to
the shafts of sunlight which sifted down upon her through the branches
of the trees overhead. And he wondered at his resisting powers--why the
spell of her fascination no longer held him as of old, not realizing
that his love for her had waned in the same proportion that he had grown
beyond her. The air of restraint which existed between them would have
been apparent even to a stranger, but Blanch had decided to dissipate
this feeling if possible. She laughed and chatted as though entirely at
her ease, as though nothing had ever come between them; making sarcastic
remarks on the customs of the country; calling into requisition all the
blandishments and fascinations which a woman of her intelligence and
attraction was capable of exercising upon a man. Every word, every look
and gesture fell upon him like a caress. She flattered, cajoled and
contradicted him, employing that subtle, deceptive art of refined
coquetry to which a sensitive nature like the Captain's was most
susceptible. Nor were its effects lost upon him; they were soon both at
their ease. She was the old Blanch again; the girl and companion of his
youth--the woman of yesterday.
The struggle that was being fought out inch by inch between her and
Chiquita was drawing swiftly to its close, and must end as abruptly as
it began. She had only begun to realize what the full significance of
love meant in the hour that she felt the loneliness occasioned by the
lack of it. She had miscalculated. She thought she was stronger than
Captain Forest, but could she have cared for him had he been a weaker
man? It was his strength which she both loved and hated, and deep down
in her heart she knew full well that, were he weaker than herself, she
must have ended by despising him. She, like Chiquita, was fighting for
her life, her very existence so to speak; but of course he did not
divine the full significance of the struggle--what it meant to them
both; no man could.
"Does the charm of this land still continue to hold you, Jack?" she
asked carelessly, passing him a cup of tea.
"More than ever," he answered, lighting a cigarette and wondering what
she was leading up to.
"Don't you think you have had about enough of it?" she continued, with
just a shade of sarcasm in her voice. "You have had a royal vacation and
I'm glad you have enjoyed yourself so thoroughly, but, honestly, don't
you think it's about time you were returning to your work again, to the
world to which you belong, of which you are a part and from which, in
spite of all effort and argument, you cannot possibly separate yourself?
You know, I never could take your idea seriously, Jack," she added, with
increasing confidence, addressing him as one would a naughty child. He
only smiled by way of reply, and quietly blew a ring of smoke into the
air.
"I see you are as obstinate and determined as ever," she continued
rather petulantly. "Don't be overconfident though; you might fail, you
know, and failure is always discouraging--it involves such a waste of
time."
"If I do, it will be the first time I have failed." He was about to
continue, but checked himself. They were getting on dangerous ground.
She understood his inference and colored and smiled. For some time
neither spoke. A gold leaf, one of the first heralds of autumn, dropped
silently down from the bough overhead to the center of the table. He
took another sip of tea.
"Jack," she said at length, raising her eyes from her hands in her lap
where she toyed with her fan, "supposing a position were offered you,
one quite worth your while, would you return? Not immediately, but
later on, when you have grown a little tired of playing at the game of
life? In six months, say--or even a year if you like?" Her whole
attitude and expression had changed, and a look of pleading and
expectancy shone from her eyes. Again he smiled. What was she driving
at? he asked himself.
"I'm afraid it will be longer than that, Blanch," he answered. "Besides,
what position could possibly be open to me? You know, my name is struck
from the lists. At least, it ought to be if it isn't."
"Possibly," she answered. "But, if you cared enough, there might be
another chance!"
"What do you mean?" he interrupted, regarding her curiously. In reply,
she quietly drew an official document from her bosom and handed it to
him across the table without a word. He colored, and she saw that his
hand trembled slightly, betraying the emotion he felt as he opened the
envelope and glanced hastily over its contents. "The Ministry to
Turkey--Blanch!" he gasped, regarding her in astonishment.
"Yes," she answered nervously, watching closely the effect the news had
upon him. "I received it a week ago. The President knows how clever you
are, Jack, and has promised to keep the position open for you if you
will consent to accept it. You know, he always had a warm place in his
heart for you."
"Blanch!" he said again, overcome by emotion. And laying the document
down upon the table in front of him he rose to his feet.
"Turkey, Jack, is but a step to London, St. Petersburg, Berlin or
Paris," she said softly, looking up at him and catching her breath in
the effort to conceal her excitement. "It is yours, Jack, if you wish
it. Understand," she resumed, lowering her gaze and running her slender
white hand slowly back and forth over the edge of her half-open fan,
"that it is yours without reservation. You are under no obligations.
Turkey and--I are two different things," she added slowly and with
difficulty, without looking up; her neck and face turning a deep
scarlet. She felt the intensity of his blazing eyes upon her.
"Blanch!" he cried, and this time there was a note of anger in his
voice. "Don't think me ungrateful, I beg of you. I appreciate what you
have done, and I thank you with my whole heart, but--I can't do it,
Blanch!"
"Jack!" she cried, throwing off the mask and springing to her feet. "I
can't stand it any longer! I can't see you wreck your life in this way!
Can't you see the folly you are committing? Don't think me presumptuous;
that I am trying to meddle, interfere in your life. I am merely trying
to save you from yourself! It's your last chance, Jack. Go back again
and never mind me; I've nothing to do with it! I can easily understand
how this life can have a certain fascination for you, but only for a
time; it can't last. The more I see of it, the more I'm convinced that
I'm right. What's the use of mincing words, fencing about the truth any
longer? I understand--I've seen it from the first. It's not this life,
but the woman that holds you!" she cried abruptly and passionately,
almost fiercely, betraying her jealousy.
"Don't wreck your life and happiness before it is too late. You must
tire of her as inevitably as you will tire of this life, and what then?
Can't you see that, when you have exhausted the glamour, and the
fascination of things is gone, she would no longer be a companion to
you? The difference between you--your lives, your world and hers, is too
great. It is insurmountable--impassable! What can she know of the world
which you and I know, to which you belong? Of another race, another
blood, she must ever remain an alien, a thing apart from yourself; there
can never be a true affinity between you. She is a savage--an aborigine
sprung from the soil. The tinsel and veneer of civilization which she
has acquired doesn't change her and can't endure. She is still a savage
in spite of it, the product of savage ancestry living close to the soil.
The simplicity and glamour and freedom of this life casts a spell over
one and attracts one of your adventurous nature, sated with the
pleasures and luxuries of our world, but will the spell last? Once you
have exhausted the simple, elemental joys of such a life, it must become
irksome, mere animal existence, unbearable, positive boredom to you.
That in her which attracts you now must inevitably become commonplace in
time and repel you. You could not endure that, Jack; you who are evolved
through thousands of generations from a higher, superior race. Your
reason and instinct must tell you that.
"Jack!" she cried in a fresh outburst, "we were made for one another!
How can she, an Indian, the product of savagery, understand you who are
of a different race, the product of civilization? Your soul can never
find the full response in hers that it can in mine. I know I was
foolish--call it willful rather than foolish--the instinct that is born
in me to command. I should not have let you go. I should have consented
to share the life you proposed, but I did not believe you were in
earnest; I did not think it would last. Besides, how could you have
expected me to understand? It was too much; you had no right to ask it
of me then. I thought, of course, you would come back to me again, Jack;
I waited for that. Can't you understand? But you didn't come back, and I
repented of my mistake a thousand times. We all make mistakes, Jack!"
His manhood revolted against being compelled to listen to her
confession, her pleading. It was undignified, cowardly. It disgusted him
and he hated himself for it, but what could he do?
"Don't say that, Blanch," he answered gently. "It is I who should ask
forgiveness. I know it was too much to ask you to share such a life with
me, but I did not realize it at the time. I wronged you, I know. I would
gladly make reparation if I knew how."
"Oh! none of that virtuous, good-humored acquiescence, Jack! I want you
to forget everything, all but the days before it happened, when you
loved me--when you swore that your love was as constant as the stars!
Have you forgotten your oath? To be true to yourself, Jack, you must
forget!" She paused. It was the first frank utterance she had made since
her coming; and, for the time being, she seemed to have forgotten her
resentment toward him.
"I have not changed, Jack," she went on. "I am the same as then; I only
did not understand you. How could I have guessed that which lay buried
within you, those latent ideals and conceptions of life which you
yourself were ignorant of? But I understand you now, Jack. It was the
foolish conceit of the girl's heart that caused me to forget what I owed
you; but now it is the woman who speaks, who bares her soul to you,
brimming full of love and passion and tenderness for the man she loves
and longs to protect--the woman who loves as the girl could never have
loved, Jack."
The light that shone from her eyes bespoke the voice of her conscience;
told him that she at least spoke the truth. Never had she appeared more
beautiful, more fascinating and alluring than at this moment, as she
stood before him, flushed and radiant and trembling with passion,
confused and indignant and ashamed; the woman rebelling within her at
being thus forced to lay bare her soul, make confession before the man
she loved. It was cruel and he knew it. Her words were like
knife-thrusts at his heart, filling his soul to its depths with sympathy
and compassion for her, and bitterness and loathing for himself.
The vision of yesterday with its gay scenes which he had cast aside,
rose before him again. Its seductive allurements swept over him with
redoubled force like a great compelling wave, filled with music and
light and laughter, the false, seductive charms of which their present
surroundings knew naught. The magic of her voice, her face, her touch
had lost none of its charm. He felt her fascination still, in spite of
himself and the bitterness of former days which he had cherished in his
heart against her. The lure of the old life was strong upon him. He
felt the hot blood rush to his face and heart; his being surged. She had
been a part of his life, they had grown up together, and do what he
would, her presence brought him face to face again with certain
realities, with the old life which he thought was dead but which was not
yet buried. When he looked upon her, he heard the old familiar sounds of
the sea, of music and siren-voices of civilizations in their
decay--breathed again the intoxicating atmosphere of that exotic,
voluptuous, sensuous existence in which he had been reared and had
lived, and with which he was saturated and from which he was striving to
escape. But when he thought of Chiquita, he heard the murmur of forests
and waters and saw the broad expanse of the plains and the wild crags
and peaks that rear their heads heavenward, above which the eagles soar.
Nature beckoned with widespread arms to her child to come--the manhood
within him cried for release, for the recognition of the individual's
right to self-assertion.
Poets have sung of the raptures of first love, but was Blanch really his
first love? The true first love is only that man or woman who can cause
one to forget oneself. Somewhere deep down in our souls there's a
something which sleeps until that hour when it suddenly bursts into
flame, as it were, and the new man is born within us; and this is what
had happened to him, though all unknown to himself, at the time when he
first beheld Chiquita riding alone in the hills. In an instant his soul
was aflame. He thrilled at the sight of her as she turned and rode away
in the dusk, and felt like crying out to her to stop; that she was his,
that she had been his from the beginning of time and he likewise hers;
that he had been searching for her down the ages and had found her at
last. All this and much more flashed through his mind as he gazed upon
the beautiful vision of Blanch before him and felt the charm of her
presence slowly creeping over him and fastening itself upon him in spite
of his resistance like the subtle, mysterious influence of music or rich
old wine.
For some time he seemed uncertain how to act or what to say. She noted
it. His hesitation inspired her with fresh courage, causing her face and
eyes to shine with the radiance of hope, dazzlingly beautiful. Her
breath came quick and fast as she drew nearer to him and then seemed to
cease altogether as she waited for his answer. All this he too noticed,
and felt himself weakening under her spell. The suspense was as terrible
for him as for her. A thousand memories rose from out the past and began
pulling at his heart-strings. Inch by inch he felt himself slowly
slipping back into the old life again, like a boat that has slipped her
moorings and glides silently and almost imperceptibly out into the
easy-flowing current. The struggle grew more intense within him as the
minutes passed. Great beads of perspiration broke out upon his brow as
he listened to those voices whose sweetness and intensity increased with
his hesitancy--those voices beneath whose charm and spell the strongest
men have succumbed in the past.
"Blanch," he said at last, hoarsely and almost in a whisper, "it takes a
better man than I to say 'no' to you, and I don't say it. But I have
changed." The mere fact of speaking and the sound of his voice seemed
to recall him to himself, to the realization of where he was and what he
was doing. He felt that he was still master of himself and his
confidence slowly returned. "I know you can't understand," he continued.
"But somehow, I seem to have grown beyond you."
"Jack," she said, drawing still closer and laying her hand upon his arm
and looking up into his face, "I know you have had more experience than
I have had, but don't imagine that you have grown beyond me. Your ideas
have caused me to think. I, too, have grown since we last parted. If you
can give up the world, so can I. If you will not return again to the
world with me, I'll remain here with you. I'll do anything you say!" she
cried in passionate surrender. "My body is soft perhaps in comparison to
hers, but I'm strong. I'll soon be as strong as you or she and be all
the more to you, infinitely more to you than she can ever be. I know I
did you a great wrong in the past, Jack, but let me make up for it now.
It is my privilege, my debt to you, and your duty to let me do it. You
have no right to break your promise to me, Jack. You can't. Your manhood
must tell you that it is as sacred now as the day you gave it to me, and
I hold you to it. I'll show you a love you have never known--can never
know without me!" She drew still closer, laying her other hand upon his
shoulder caressingly; her arm almost encircling his neck. He felt her
warm, fragrant breath upon his lips and the thrilling, magnetic touch of
her body, vibrating and pulsating with passion and emotion. How soft and
voluptuous and tempting and alluring that body and presence were! It
was as though the spices and perfumes and sunshine of far away, mythical
Cathay had suddenly descended upon him and enveloped him.
"Jack," she continued, "we have always been comrades, pals; we were made
for one another! We are one in thought now as much as we ever were--more
than we ever have been!"
He knew this to be false; that he possessed a grip on life which she did
not; that he had passed far beyond her since they had last parted. She
had had her opportunity and had thrown it away. It was too late. She
could not follow him now, she had missed the psychological moment. Even
had she cast her lot with his in the beginning, he knew that she never
could have followed him. She was immeshed; her feet were caught in the
net. The blandishments of life had taken too deep root in her soul for
her to cast them forth as he had done. And yet his conscience smote him
for her sake, for what she suffered, that she was thus forced to
humiliate herself before him. Sentiment and old memories surged up
within him and urged him to keep her. What, after all, did it matter
where or how they lived? The world would go on its way the same as it
had always done; it didn't wish to be reformed and wasn't worth
reforming.
"Take her! take her!" cried those voices more persistently than ever.
"Don't be a fool and miss this opportunity which, once gone, shall pass
out of your life forever. She's as beautiful and as brilliant as the
other woman; one of your own race and, after all, will wear as well.
Besides, you know her and you don't know the other woman, and if
disappointed in the latter--what then? Take her!"
The vision of Glaire's wonderful conception, "The Lost Illusions," rose
before him. He saw again that exquisite figure of the Egyptian, strong
and sensitive, in the prime of manhood, seated upon the shore of the
Nile, watching the bark of destiny laden with the fair illusions of
youth, draw slowly away from him and grow fainter and fainter in the
soft, mellow light of age, as it floated away on the evening tide of
life. He, too, stood in the prime of manhood. Was this to be his end,
mocked and laughed at by fate--the price he must pay for daring to lift
his eyes from the dust to the stars to fulfill the dream of the ages?
God knew how he had fought against the invisible power that had driven
him on step by step to his present state. He looked down into the
beautiful upturned face of the woman before him whom he had known so
long, whom he had loved and adored; gazed deep into those soft, azure
eyes, limpid as two crystal pools, saw those full red upturned lips
waiting to be kissed--kissed. Again her lips parted.
"Jack, Jack, Sweetheart, I'm waiting--" she murmured softly, encircling
his neck completely with her arm and drawing his face gently down to her
own. Just then the rhythmic silvery whir of wings caused them to look
upward. Through the boughs of the tree they saw the indistinct form of a
white dove that fluttered overhead for an instant and then was gone. At
the same moment Captain Forest distinctly recognized the scent of
Castilian roses, as though their fragrance had been wafted full in his
face by a breeze, and yet there was no breeze, nor were there any roses
close at hand; the season of roses had passed.
No man could have resisted for long the fascinations of a woman like
Blanch Lennox if she chose to make love to him. It was the sound of
those wings and the fragrance of the roses that upheld Captain Forest's
resolution; especially the fragrance of the roses. Whence it came or how
it originated, who could say? For it came and passed like a mere breath.
Perhaps the invisible angel who, it is said, presides over the destiny
of the individual, caused it; for with it flashed the vision of Chiquita
before his eyes as he had seen her on that day in the garden among the
roses and had silently watched her from the back of his horse and
breathed deep drafts of the flowery fragrance. The same subtle,
invisible something that has changed the destiny of individuals and of
nations through all the ages, caused him to remember, recalled him to
himself. The manhood surged up within him, asserting its supremacy, and
he drew himself up with a sudden impulse. She noted the change, and in a
fierce, passionate voice, almost of terror, cried: "Jack, you are mine,
you have always been mine! I will not give you up--I claim my own!" and
she flung her arms passionately about his neck in an endeavor to draw
his lips down to her own.
"I can't--I can't do it, Blanch!" he said, and shook himself free. With
a cry, terrible in its intensity and despair, she sank across the
table.