Talbot of Ursula

(This story first appeared in the _Anglo-Saxon Review_, and is

republished by kind permission of Mrs. George Cornwallis-West)

I

The Señora as usual had written a formal little note in the morning

asking John Talbot to eat his birthday dinner at the Rancho de los

Olivos. Although he called on the Señora once a week the year round, she

never offered him more than a glass of angelica or a cup of chocolate on

any other occasion; but for his natal day she had a turkey killed, and

her aged cook prepared so many hot dishes and _dulces_ of the old time

that Talbot was a wretched man for three days. But he would have endured

misery for six rather than forego this feast, and the brief embrace of

home life that accompanied it.

The Señora and the padre of the Mission were Talbot's only companions in

Santa Ursula, although for political reasons he often dropped in at the

saloon of the village and discussed with its polyglot customers such

affairs of the day as penetrated this remote corner of California. And

yet for twenty-three years he had lived in Santa Ursula, year in and

year out, save for brief visits to San Francisco, Sacramento, and the

Southern towns.

Why had he stayed on in this God-forsaken hole after he had become a

rich man? He asked himself the question with some humor as he walked up

and down the corridor of the Mission on this his fortieth birthday; and

he had asked it many times.

To some souls the perfect peace, the warm drowsy beauty of the scene

would have been a conclusive answer. Two friars in their brown robes

passed and repassed him, reading their prayers. Beyond the arches of the

corridor, abruptly below the plateau on which stood the long white

Mission, was, so far as the eye was responsible, an illimitable valley,

cutting the horizon on the south and west, cut by the mountains of Santa

Barbara on the east. The sun was brazen in a dark-blue sky, and under

its downpour the vast olive orchard which covered the valley looked like

a silver sea. The glittering ripples met the blue of the horizon

sharply, crinkled against the lower spurs of the mountain. As a bird

that had skimmed its surface, then plunged for a moment, rose again,

Talbot almost expected to see it shake bright drops from its wings. He

sighed involuntarily as he reflected that in the dark caves and arbors

below it was very cool, far cooler than he would be during an eight-mile

ride under the mid-day sun of Southern California. Then he remembered

that the Señora's _sala_ was also dark and cool, and that part of his

way lay through the cotton-woods and willows by the river; and he smiled

whimsically again. He had salted his long sojourn at Santa Ursula with

much philosophy.

One mountain-peak, detached from the range and within a mile of the

Mission, was dense and dark with forest, broken only here and there by

the bowlders the earth had flung on high in her restless youth. There

was but a winding trail to the top, and few had made acquaintance with

it. John Talbot knew it well, and that to which it led--a lake in the

very cup of the peak, so clear and bright that it reflected every needle

of the dark pines embracing it.

And to the west of the Mission--past the river with its fringe of

cotton-woods and willows, beyond a long dusty road which led through

fields and cañon and over more than one hill--was the old adobe house of

the Rancho de los Olivos.

Talbot was a practical man of business to-day. The olive orchard was

his, the toy hotel at the end of the plateau, the land upon which had

grown the rough village, with its one store, its prosperous saloon, its

post-office, and several shanties of citizens not altogether estimable.

He was also a man of affairs, for he had represented the district for

two years at the State Legislature, and was spoken of as a future

Senator. It cannot be said that the people among whom he had spent so

many years of his life loved him, for he was reserved and had never been

known to slap a man on the back. Moreover, it was believed that he

subscribed to a San Francisco daily paper, which he did not place on

file in the saloon, and that he had a large library of books in one of

his rooms at the Mission. As far as the neighbors could see, the priest

was the only man in the district in whom he found companionship.

Nevertheless he was respected and trusted as a man must be who has never

broken his word nor taken advantage of another for twenty-three years;

and even those who resented the manifest antagonism of his back to the

national familiarity felt that the dignity and interest of the State

would be safe in his hands. Even those most in favor of rotation had

concluded that it would not be a bad idea to put him in Congress for

life, after the tacit fashion of the New England States. At all events

they would try him in the House of Representatives for two or three

terms, and then, if he satisfied their expectations and demonstrated his

usefulness, they would "work" the State and send him to the United

States Senate. Santa Ursula had but one street, but its saloon was the

heart of a hundred-mile radius. And it was as proud as an old don. When

its leading citizen became known far and wide as "Talbot of Ursula," a

title conferred by the members of his Legislature to distinguish him

from two colleagues of the same name, its pride in him knew no bounds.

The local papers found it an effective head-line, and the title clung to

him for the rest of his life.

It was only when a newspaper interviewed Talbot after his election to

the State Senate that his district learned that he was by birth an

Englishman. He had emigrated with his parents at the age of fourteen,

however, and as the population of his district included Germans, Irish,

Swedes, Mexicans, and Italians, his nationality mattered little.

Moreover, he had made his own fortune, barring the start his uncle had

given him, and he was an American every inch of him. England was but a

peaceful dream, a vale of the hereafter's rest set at the wrong end of

life. He recalled but one incident of that time, but on that incident

his whole life had hinged.

It was some years now since it had grouped itself, a tableau of gray

ghosts, in his memory, but he invoked it to-day, although it seemed to

have no place in the hot languid morning with that Southern sea hiding

its bitter fruit breaking almost at the feet of this long white

red-tiled Mission whose silver bells had once called hundreds of Indians

to prayer. (They rang with vehemence still, but few responded.)

Nevertheless the memory rose and held him.

His mother, a widow, had kept a little shop in his native village. He

had gone to school since the tender age of five, and had paid more

attention to his books than to the village battle-ground, for he grew

rapidly, and was very delicate until the change to the new world made a

man of him. But he loved his books, the other boys were kind to him, and

altogether he was not ill-pleased with his life when one day his mother

bade him put on his best clothes and come with her to a wedding. He

grumbled disdainfully, for he had an interesting book in his hand; but

he was used to obey his mother; he tumbled into his Sunday clothes and

followed her and other dames to the old stone church at the top of the

village. The daughter of the great family of the neighborhood was to be

married that morning, and all the little girls of John's acquaintance

were dressed in white and had strewn flowers along the main street and

the road beyond as far as the castle gates. He thought it a silly

business and a sinful waste of posies; but in the church-yard he took

his place in the throng with a certain feeling of curiosity.

The bride happened to be one of the beauties of her time; but it was not

so much her beauty that made John stare at her with expanding eyes and

mouth as she drove up in an open carriage, then walked down the long

path from the gate to the church. He had seen beauty before; but never

that look and air of a race far above his own, of light impertinent

pride, never a lissome daintily stepping figure, and a head carried as

if it bore a star rather than a bridal wreath. He had not dreamed of

anything alive resembling this, and he knew she was not an angel. After

she had entered the church he drew a long breath and glanced sharply at

the village beauties. They looked like coarse red apples; and, alas, his

mother was of their world.

When the bride reappeared he stared hard at her again, but this time he

noticed that there were similar delicate beings in her train. She was

not the only one of her kind, then. The discovery filled him with

amazement, which was followed by a curious sensation of hope. He broke

away from his mother and ran after the carriage for nearly a mile,

determined to satisfy his eager eyes as long as might be. The bride

noticed him, and, smiling, tossed him a rose from her bouquet. He had

that flower yet.

It was a week before he confided to his mother that when he grew up he

intended to marry a lady. Mrs. Talbot stared, then laughed. But when he

repeated the statement a few evenings later during their familiar hour,

she told him peremptorily to put such ideas out of his head, that the

likes of him didn't marry ladies. And when she explained why, with the

brutal directness she thought necessary, John was as depressed as a boy

of fourteen can be. It was but a week later, however, that his mother,

upon announcing her determination to emigrate to America, said to him:

"And perhaps you'll get that grand wish of yours. Out there I've heard

say as how one body's as good as another, so if you're a good boy and

make plenty of brass, you can marry a lady as well as not." She forgot

the words immediately, but John never forgot them.

Mrs. Talbot died soon after their arrival in New York, and the brother

who had sent for her put John to school for two years. One day he told

him to pack his trunk and accompany him to California in search of gold.

They bought a comfortable emigrant wagon and joined a large party about

to cross the plains in quest of El Dorado. During that long momentous

journey John felt like a character in a book of adventures, for they had

no less than three encounters with red Indians, and two of his party

were scalped. He always felt young again when he recalled that time. It

was one of those episodes in life when everything was exactly as it

should be.

He and his uncle remained in the San Joaquin valley for a year, and

although they were not so fortunate as many others, they finally moved

to San Francisco the richer by a few thousands. Here Mr. Quick opened a

gambling-house and saloon, and made money far more rapidly than he had

done in the northern valley--where, in truth, he had lost much by night

that he had panned out by day. But being a virtuous uncle, if an

imperfect member of society, he soon sent John to the country to look

after a ranch near the Mission of Santa Ursula. The young man never knew

that this fine piece of property had been won over the gambling table

from Don Roberto Ortega, one of the maddest grandees of the Californias.

His grant embraced some fifty thousand acres and was bright in patches

with little olive orchards. John planted with olive-trees, at his own

expense, the twelve thousand acres which had fallen to his uncle's

share; the two men were to be partners, and the younger was to inherit

the elder's share. He inherited nothing else, for his uncle married a

Mexican woman who knifed him and made off with what little money had

been put aside from current extravagances. But John worked hard, bought

_varas_ in San Francisco whenever he had any spare cash, supplied almost

the entire State with olives and olive-oil, and in time became a rich

man.

And his ideal? Only the Indians had driven it temporarily into the

unused chambers of his memory. Not gold-mines, nor his brief taste of

the wild hot life of San Francisco, nor hard work among his olive-trees,

nor increasing wealth and importance, had driven from his mind that

desire born among the tombstones of his native village. It was the woman

herself with a voice as silver as his own olive leaves, who laughed his

dream to death, and left him, still handsome, strong, and lightly

touched by time, a bachelor at forty.

He saw nothing of women for several years after he came to the Mission,

for the one ranch house in the neighborhood was closed, and there was no

village then. He worked among his olive-trees contentedly enough,

spending long profitable evenings with the intellectual priests, who

made him one of their family, and studying law and his favorite science,

political economy. Although the boy was very handsome, with his

sun-burned, well-cut face and fine figure, it never occurred to the

priests that the most romantic of hearts beat beneath that shrewd,

accumulative brain. Of women he had never spoken, except when he had

confided to his friends that he was glad to get away from the very sight

of the terrible creatures of San Francisco; and that he dreamed for

hours among his olive-trees of the thoroughbred creature who was one day

to reward his labors and make him the happiest of mortals never entered

the imagination of the good padres.

He was twenty and the ranch was his when he met Delfina Carillo. Don

Roberto Ortega had opportunely died before gambling away more than half

of his estate, and his widow, who was delicate, left the ranch near

Monterey, where they had lived for many years, and came to bake brown in

the hot suns of the South. Her son, Don Enrique, came with her, and John

saw him night and morning riding about the country at top speed, and

sometimes clattering up to the corridor of the Mission and calling for a

glass of wine. He was a magnificent caballero, slim and dark, with

large melting eyes and long hair on a little head. He wore small-clothes

of gayly colored silk, with much lace on his shirt and silver on his

sombrero. His long yellow botas were laced with silver, and his saddle

was so loaded with the same metal that only a Californian horse could

have carried it. John turned up his nose at this gorgeous apparition,

and likened him to a "play actor" and a circus rider; nevertheless, he

was very curious to see something of the life of the Californian

grandee, of which he had heard much and seen nothing, and when Padre

Ortega, who was a cousin of the widow, told him that a large company was

expected within a fortnight, and that he had asked permission to take

his young friend to the ball with which the festivities would open, John

began to indulge in the pleasurable anticipations of youth.

But he did not occupy the interval with dreams alone. He went to San

Francisco and bought himself a wardrobe suitable for polite society. It

was an American outfit, not Californian, but had John possessed the

wealth of the northern valleys he could not have been induced to put

himself into silk and lace.

The stage did not go to Santa Ursula, but a servant met him at a station

twenty miles from home with a horse, and a cart for his trunk. He

washed off the dust of three days' travel in a neighboring creek, then

jumped on his big gray mare, and started at a mild gallop for his ranch.

He felt like singing his contentment with the world, for the morning was

radiant, he was on one of the finest horses of the country, and he was

as light of heart as a boy should be who has received a hint from

fortune that he is one of the favorites. He looked forward to the social

ordeal without apprehension, for by this time he had all the native

American's sense of independence, he had barely heard the word

"gentleman" since his arrival in the new country, his education was all

that could be desired, he was a landed proprietor, and intended to be a

rich and successful man. No wonder he wanted to sing.

He had ridden some eight or ten miles, meeting no one in that great

wilderness of early California, when he suddenly drew rein and listened.

He was descending into a narrow cañon on whose opposite slope the road

continued to the interior; his way lay sharply to the south when he

reached the narrow stream between the walls of the cañon. The sound of

many voices came over the hills opposite, and the voices were light, and

young, and gay. John remembered that it was time for Doña Martina's

visitors to arrive, and guessed at once that he was about to fall in

with one of the parties. The young Californians travelled on horseback

in those days, thinking nothing of forty miles under a midsummer sun.

John, who was the least self-conscious of mortals, was moved to

gratitude that he wore a new suit of gray serge and had left the dust of

stage travel in the creek.

The party appeared on the crest of the hill, and began the descent into

the cañon. John raised his cap, and the caballeros responded with a

flourish of sombreros. It would be some moments before they could meet,

and John was glad to stare at the brilliant picture they made. Life

suddenly seemed unreal, unmodern to him. He forgot his olive-trees, and

recalled the tales the priests had told him of the pleasures and

magnificence of the Californian dons before the American occupation.

The caballeros were in silk, every one of them, and for variety of hue

they would have put a June garden to the blush. Their linen and silver

were dazzling, and the gold-colored coats of their horses seemed a

reflection of the sun. These horses had silver tails and manes, and

seemed invented for the brilliant creatures who rode them. The girls

were less gorgeous than the caballeros, for they wore delicate flowered

gowns, and a strip of silk about their heads instead of sombreros

trimmed with silver eagles. But they filled John's eye, and he forgot

the caballeros. They had long black braids of hair and large dark eyes

and white skins, and at that distance they all looked beautiful; but

although John worshipped beauty, even in the form of olive-trees and

purple mists, it was not the loveliness of these Spanish girls that set

his pulses beating and sent the blood to his head. This was almost his

first sight of gentlewomen since the memorable day in his native

village, and the certainty that his opportunity had come at last filled

him with both triumph and terror as he spurred down the slope, then

paused and watched the cavalcade pick their way down through the golden

grass and the thick green bush of the cañon. In a moment he recognized

Don Enrique Ortega, who spoke to him pleasantly enough as he rode into

the creek and dropped his bridle that his horse might drink. The two

young men had met at the Mission, and although Enrique regarded the

conquerors of his country as an inferior race, John was as good as any

of them, and doubtless it was best to make no enemies. Moreover, his

manners were very good.

"Ah, Don Juan," he exclaimed, "you have make the visit to Yerba

Buena--San Francisco you call him now, no? I go this morning to meet my

friends who make for the Rancho de los Olivos so great an honor. Si you

permit me I introduce you, for you are the friend de my cousin, Padre

Ortega."

The company had scattered down the stream to refresh their horses,

making a long banner of color in the dark cañon. Don Enrique led John

along the line, and presented him solemnly to each in turn. The

caballeros protested eternal friendship with vehement insincerity, and

the girls flashed their eyes and teeth at the blue-eyed young American

without descending from their unconscious pride of sex and race. They

had the best blood of Spain in them, and an American was an American, be

he never so agreeable to contemplate.

The girls looked much alike in the rebosos which framed their faces so

closely, and John promptly fell in love with all of them at once.

Selection could take place later; he was too happy to think of anything

so serious as immediate marriage. But one of them he determined to have.

He rode out of the cañon with them, and they were gracious, and

chattered of the pleasures to come at the Rancho de los Olivos.

John noticed that Enrique kept persistently at the side of one maiden,

and rode a little ahead with her. She was very tall and slim, and so

graceful that she swayed almost to her horse's neck when branches

drooped too low. John began to wish for a glimpse of her face.

"That is Delfina Carillo," said the girl beside him, following his gaze.

"She go to marry with Enrique, I theenk. He is very devot, and I think

she like him, but no will say."

Perhaps it was merely the fact that this dainty flower hung a little

higher than the others that caused John's thoughts to concentrate upon

her, and roused his curiosity to such an extent that he drew his

companion on to talk of the girl who was favored by Enrique Ortega. He

learned that she was the daughter of a great rancher near Santa Barbara,

and was La Favorita of all the country round.

"She have the place that Chonita Iturbi y Moncada have before, and many

caballeros want to marry with her, but she no pay much attention; only

now I think like Enrique. Ay, he sing so beautiful, Señor, no wonder si

she loving him. Serenade her every night, and she love the musica."

"It certainly must be that," thought John, "for he hasn't an idea in his

head."

He did not see her until that night. The priest wore the brown robe of

his order to the ball, and John his claw-hammer. They both looked out of

place among those birds of brilliant plumage.

Doña Martina, large and coffee-colored, with a mustache and many

jewels, sat against the wall with other señoras of her kind. They wore

heavy red and yellow satins, but the girls wore light silks that

fluttered as they walked.

Doña Martina gave him a sleepy welcome, and he turned his attention to

the dancing, in which he could take no part. He knew that his manners

were good and his carriage easy, but the lighter graces had not come his

way.

At the moment a girl was dancing alone in the middle of the _sala_, and

John knew instinctively that she was Delfina Carillo. Like the other

girls, she wore her hair high under a tall comb, but her gown was white

and trimmed with the lace of Spain. Her feet, of course, were tiny, and

showed plainly beneath her slightly lifted skirts; and she danced with

no perceptible effort, rather as if swayed by a light wind, like the

pendent moss in the woods. She had just begun to dance when John

entered, and the company was standing against the wall in silence; but

in a few moments the young men began to mutter, then to clap and stamp,

then to shout, and finally they plunged their hands wildly into their

pockets and flung gold and silver at her feet. But she took no notice

beyond a flutter of nostril, and continued to dance like a thing of

light and air.

Her beauty was very great. John, young as he was, knew that it was

hardly likely he should ever see beauty in such perfection again. It was

not an intellectual face, but it was faultless of line and delicate of

coloring. The eyes were not only very large and black, but the lashes

were so long and soft the wonder was they did not tangle. Her skin was

white, her cheeks and lips were pink, her mouth was curved and flexible;

and her figure, her arms and hands and feet had the expression in their

perfect lines that her face lacked. John noticed that she had a short

upper lip, a haughty nostril, and a carriage that expressed pride both

latent and active. It was with an effort that she bent her head

graciously as she glided from the floor, taking no notice of the

offerings that had been flung at her feet.

And John loved her once and for all. She was the sublimation of every

dream that his romantic heart had conceived. He felt faint for a moment

at the difficulties which bristled between himself and this superlative

being, but he was a youthful conqueror, and life had been very amiable

to him. He shook courage into his spirit and asked to be presented to

her at once.

Her eyes swept his face indifferently, but something in his intense

regard compelled her attention, and although she appeared to scorn

conversation, she smiled once or twice; and when she smiled her face

was dazzling.

"That was very wonderful, that dance, señorita; but does it not tire

you?"

"No."

"You are glad to give such great pleasure, I suppose?"

"Si--"

"You are so used to compliments--I know how the caballeros go on--you

won't mind my saying it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw--and I

have been about the world a bit."

"Si?"

"I wish I could dance, if only to dance with you."

"You no dance?" Her tone expressed polite scorn, although her voice was

scarcely audible.

"Would--would--you talk out a dance with me?"

"Oh no." She looked as astonished as if John had asked her to shut

herself up alone in her room for the rest of the evening, and she swayed

her back slowly upon him and lifted her hand to the shoulder of Enrique.

In another moment she was gliding down the room in his arm, and John

noted that the color in her cheek was deeper.

"It is impossible that she can care for that doll," he thought;

"impossible."

But in the days that followed he realized that the race was to be a hot

one. He was included in all the festivities, and they went to

_meriendas_ among the cotton-woods by the river and in the hills, danced

every night, were entertained by the priests at the Mission, and had

bull-fights, horse-races, and many games of skill. Upon one occasion

John was the happy host of a moonlight dance among his olive-trees.

Enrique's attentions to his beautiful guest were persistent and

unmistakable, and, moreover, he serenaded her nightly. John, riding

about the ranch late, too restless to sleep, heard those dulcet tones

raining compliments and vows upon Delfina's casement, and swore so

furiously that he terrified the night birds.

But he, too, managed to keep close to Delfina, in spite of an occasional

scowl from Enrique, who, however, held all Americans in too lofty a

contempt to fear one. John had several little talks apart with her, and

it was not long before he discovered that nature had done little for the

interior of that beautiful shell. She had read nothing, and thought

almost as little. What intelligence she had was occupied with her

regalities, and although sweet in spite of her hauteur, and unselfish

notwithstanding her good-fortune, as a companion she would mean little

to any man. John, however, was in the throes of his first passion, and

his nature was ardent and thorough. Had she been a fool, simpering

instead of dignified, he would not have cared. She was beautiful and

magnetic, and she embodied an ideal. The ideal, however, or rather the

ambition that was its other half, played no part in his mind as his love

deepened. He wanted the woman, and had he suddenly discovered that she

was a changeling born among the people, his love and his determination

to marry her would have abated not a tittle.

His olive-trees were neglected, and he spent the hours of their

separations riding about the country with as little mercy on his horses

as had he been a Californian born. Sometimes, touched by the youthful

fervor in his eyes, Delfina would melt perceptibly and ask him a

question or two about himself, a dazzling favor in one who held that

words were made to rust. And once, when he lifted her off her horse

under the heavy shadow of the trees, she gave him a glance which sent

John far from her side, lest he make a fool of himself before the entire

company. Meanwhile he was not unhappy, in spite of the wildness in his

blood, for he found the tremors of love and hope and fear as sweet as

they were extraordinary.

One evening the climax came.

Delfina expressed a wish to see the lake on the summit of the solitary

peak. It had been discovered by the Indians, but was unknown to the

luxurious Californians. The company was assembled on the long corridor

traversing the front of the Casa Ortega when Delfina startled Enrique by

a command to take them all to the summit that night.

"But, _señorita mia_," exclaimed Enrique, turning pale at the thought of

offending his goddess, "there is no path. I do not know the way. And it

is as steep as the tower of the Mission--"

John came forward. "There is an Indian trail," he said, "and I have

climbed it more than once. But it is very narrow--and steep, certainly."

Delfina's eyes, which had flashed disdain upon Enrique, smiled upon

John. "We go with you," she announced; "to-night, for is moon. And I

ride in front with you."

On the whole, thought Talbot, glancing towards the great peak whose

wilderness was still unrifled, that was the happiest night of his life.

They outdistanced the others by a few yards, and they were obliged to

ride so close that their shoulders touched. It was the full of the moon,

but in the forest there was only an occasional splash of silver. They

might have fancied themselves alone in primeval solitude had it not

been for the gay voices behind them. And never had Delfina been so

enchanting. She even talked a little, but her accomplished coquetry

needed few words. She could express more by a bend of the head or an

inflection of the voice than other women could accomplish with

vocabularies and brains. John felt his head turning, but retained wisdom

enough to wait for a moment when they should be quite alone.

The lake looked like a large reflection of the moon itself, for the

black trees shadowed but the edge of the waters. So great was the beauty

of the scene that for a few moments the company gazed at it silently,

and the mountain-top remained as still as during its centuries of

loneliness. But, finally, some one exclaimed, "_Ay, yi!_" and then rose

a chorus, "_Dios de mi alma!_" "_Dios de mi vida!_" "_Ay_, California!

California!" "_Ay, de mi, de mi, de mi!_"

Everybody, even Enrique, was occupied. John caught the bridle of

Delfina's horse, and forced it back into the forest. And then his words

tumbled one over the other.

"I must, I must!" he said wildly, keeping down his voice with

difficulty. "I've scarcely had a chance to make you love me, but I can't

wait to tell you--I love you. I love you! I want to marry you! Oh--I am

choking!" He wrenched at his collar, and in truth he felt as if the very

mountain were trembling.

Delfina had thrown back her head. "Ay!" she remarked. Then she laughed.

She had no desire to be cruel, but her manifest amusement brought the

blood down from John's head, and he shook from head to foot. His white

face showed plainly in this fringe of the forest, and she ceased

laughing and spoke kindly.

"Poor boy, I am sorry si I hurt you, but I no can marry you. Never I can

love the Americano; no is like our men, so handsome, so graceful, so

splendid. I like you, for are very nice boy, but I go to marry with

Enrique. So no theenk more about it." Then as he continued to stare, the

youthful agony in his face touched her, and she leaned forward and said

softly, "Can kiss me once si you like. You are boy to me, no more, so I

no mind." And he kissed her with a violence of despair and passion which

caused her maiden mind to wonder, and which she never experienced again.

He went no more to the Casa Ortega, and hid among his olive-trees when

the company clattered by the Mission. At the end of another week she

returned to her home, and three months later she returned as the bride

of Enrique Ortega.

Talbot smiled slightly as he recalled the sufferings of the boy long

dead. There had been months when he had felt half mad; then had

succeeded several years of melancholy and a distaste for everything in

life but work. He could not bring himself to sell the ranch and flee

from the scene of his disappointment, for he was young enough to take a

morbid pleasure in the very theatre of his failure.

He did not see Delfina again for three years. By that time she had three

children and had begun to grow stout. But she was still very beautiful,

and John kept out of her way for several years more.

But the years rolled round very swiftly. Doña Martina died. So did six

of the ten children Delfina bore. Then Enrique died, leaving his

diminished estates, his wife, and his four little girls to the care of

John Talbot.

This was after fourteen years of matrimony and six years of intimacy

between Talbot and the family of Los Olivos. One day Enrique, in

desperation at the encroachments of certain squatters, had bethought

himself of the American, now the most influential man in the county, and

gone to him for advice. Talbot had found him a good lawyer, lent him the

necessary money, and the squatters were dispossessed. Enrique's

gratitude for Talbot knew no bounds; he pressed the hospitality of Los

Olivos upon him, and in time the two became fast friends.

Ortega and Delfina had jogged along very comfortably. She was an

exemplary wife, a devoted mother, and as excellent a housekeeper as

became her traditions. He made a kind and indulgent husband, and if

neither found much to say to the other, their brief conversations were

amiable. Enrique developed no wit with the years, but he was always a

courteous host and played a good game of billiards, besides taking a

mild interest in the affairs of the nation. John soon fell into the

habit of spending two nights a week at the Rancho de los Olivos, and

never failed to fill his pockets with sweets for the little girls, who

preferred him to their father.

And his love! He used to fancy it was buried somewhere in the mausoleum

of flesh which had built itself about Delfina Carillo. She weighed two

hundred pounds, and her black hair and fine teeth were the only remnants

of her splendid beauty. Her face was large and brown, and although she

retained her dignity of carriage and moved with the old slow grace, she

looked what she was, the Spanish mother of many children.

The change was gradual, and brought no pang with it. John's memory was a

good one, and sometimes when it turned to his youth and the one passion

of his life, he felt something like a sob in his soul, a momentary echo

of the old agony. But it was only an echo; he had outgrown it all long

since. He sometimes wondered that he loved no other woman, why his

ambition to have an aristocratic wife had died with his first passion;

and concluded that the intensity of his nature had worn itself out in

that period of prolonged suffering, and that he was incapable of loving

again. And the experience had satisfied him that marriage without love

would be a poor affair. Once in a while, after leaving the plain

coffee-colored dame who filled the doorway as she waved him good-bye, he

sighed as he recalled the exquisite creature of his youth. But these

sighs grew less and less frequent, for not only was the grass high above

that old grave in his heart and he a busy and practical man, but the

Señora Ortega had become the most necessary of his friends. What she

lacked in brain she made up in sympathy, and she had developed a certain

amount of intelligence with the years. It became his habit to talk to

her of all his ambitions and plans, particularly after the death of

Enrique, when they had many uninterrupted hours together.

Upon Ortega's death Talbot took charge of the estate at once, and into

the particulars of her handsome income it never occurred to the widow to

inquire. One by one the girls married, and Talbot dowered them all. They

were pretty creatures, and John loved them, for each had in her face a

morsel of Delfina Carillo's lost beauty; and if they recalled the pain

of his youth they recalled its sweetness too. The Señora recalled

neither.

For the last year she had been quite alone. Two of her daughters lived

in the city of Mexico. One had married a Spanish Consul and returned

with him to Spain. The other lived in San Francisco, and as soon as

domestic affairs would permit intended to visit her sisters. Talbot,

when at home, called on the Señora once a week and always carried a

novel or an illustrated paper in his saddle-bag.

"Is the tragedy at this end or the other?" thought Talbot, as he walked

up and down the Mission corridor on his fortieth birthday--"that I could

not have her when I was mad about her, or that I can have her now and

don't want her?"

He knew that the Señora was lonesome in her big house and would have

welcomed a companion, but he knew also that the desire moved sluggishly

in the depths of her lazy mind. If he were willing, well and good. If

otherwise, it mattered not much.

His Indian servant cantered up with his horse, he gave a last regretful

glance at the cool corridor of the Mission, and then went out into the

hot sun.

He was only a stone heavier than in the old days, but he rode more

slowly, for this his favorite mare was no longer young. His day for

breaking in bucking mustangs was over, and he liked an animal that would

behave itself as became the four-footed companion of his years.

The road through the pale green cotton-woods and willows that wooded the

banks of the river--as dry as the heavens--was almost cold, and

refreshingly dim; but when the bed and its fringe turned abruptly to the

south his way led for five sweltering miles through sun-burned fields

and over hills as yellow as polished gold. The sky looked like dark-blue

metal in which a hole had been cut for a lake of fire. The heat it

emptied quivered visibly in the parched fields, and the mountains swam

in a purple haze. Talbot had a grape-leaf in his hat, and the suns of

California had baked his complexion long since, but he wished that his

birthday occurred in winter, as he had wished many a time before.

It was an hour and a half before he rode into the grounds surrounding

Casa Ortega. Then he spurred his horse, for here were many old oak-trees

and the atmosphere was twenty degrees cooler. A Mexican servant met him,

and he dismounted and walked the few remaining yards to the house. He

sighed as he remembered that Herminia, the last of the girls to marry,

had been there to kiss him on his last birthday. He would gladly have

had all four back again, and now they had passed out of his life

forever.

The Casa Ortega was a very long adobe house one story in height and one

room deep, except in an ell where a number of rooms were bunched

together. The Señora had it whitewashed every year, and the red tiles on

the roof renewed when necessary; therefore it had none of the pathetic

look of old age peculiar to the adobe mansions of the dead grandees.

A long veranda traversed the front, supported by pillars and furnished

with gayly painted chairs; but it was empty, and Talbot entered the

_sala_ at once. It was a long room, severely furnished in the old style,

and facing the door was a painting of Delfina Carillo. Talbot rarely

allowed his eyes to wander to this portrait. Had he dared he would have

asked for its removal. The grass was long above the grave, but there

were such things as ghosts.

The Señora was sitting in a corner of the dim cool room, and rose at

once to greet him. She came forward with a grace and dignity of carriage

that still had the power to prick his admiration. But she was very dark,

and the old enchanting smile had lost its way long since in the large

cheeks and heavy chin. Even her eyes no longer looked big, and the

famous lashes had been worn down by many tears; for there were six

little graves in the Ortega corner of the Mission church-yard, and she

had loved her children devotedly. She carried her two hundred pounds as

unconsciously as she had once carried her willowy inches, and she wore

soft black cashmere in winter and lawn in summer, fastened at the throat

with a miniature of the husband of her youth. She was only thirty-nine,

but there was not a vestige of youth about her anywhere, and her whole

being expressed a life lived, and a sleepy contentment with the fact.

Talbot often wondered if she had no hours of insupportable loneliness;

but she gave no sign, and he concluded that novels and religion

sufficed.

"So hot it is, no?" she said in her soft hardly audible tones, that,

like her carriage and manner, were unchanged. "You have the face very

red, but feel better in a little while. Very cool here, no?"

"I feel ten years younger than I did a quarter of an hour ago. There

was a time--alas!--when I could stand the suns of California for six

hours at a stretch, but--"

"Ay, yes, we grow more old every year. Is twenty now since we _merienda_

all day and dance all night--when I am a visitor here, no more; and you

are the thin boy with the long arms, and legs, and try to grow the

mustache."

It was the first time she had ever referred to their youth, and he

stared at her. But her face was as placid as if she had been helping him

to chicken with Chile-sauce, and he wondered if it could change.

Involuntarily he glanced at the portrait. It seemed alive with

expression, and--the room was almost dark--he fancied the eyes were

tragic.

"How can she stand it?" he thought. "How _can_ she?"

"You are improve," she continued politely. "The American mens no grow

old like the Spanish--or like the women that have ten children and get

so stout and have the troubles--"

"You have retained much, Señora," exclaimed Talbot, blundering over the

first compliment he he had paid her in twenty years.

She smiled placidly and moved her head gently; the word "shake" could

never apply to any of her movements. "I have the mirror--and the

picture. And I no mind, Don Juan. When the woman bury the six children,

no care si she grow old. The more soon grow old the more soon die and

see the little ones--am always very fond of Enrique also," she added,

"but when am young love more. He is very good man always, but he grow

old like myself and very fat. Only you are improve, my friend. That one

reason why always I am so glad to see you. Remind me of that time when

all are young and happy."

Old Marcia announced dinner, and Talbot sprang to his feet with a

sensation of relief and offered the Señora his arm. She made no further

references to their youth during the excellent and highly seasoned

repast, but discussed the possibilities of the crops and listened with

deep attention to the political forecast. She knew that politics were

becoming the absorbing interest in the life of her friend, and although

she also knew that they would one day put a continent between herself

and him, she had long since ceased to live for self, and never failed to

encourage him.

When the last _dulce_ had been eaten they went out upon the veranda and

talked drowsily of minor matters until both nodded in their comfortable

chairs, and finally fell asleep.

For a time the heavy dinner locked Talbot's brain, but finally he began

to dream of his youth, and the scenes of which Delfina Carillo had been

the heroine were flung from their rusty frames into the hot light of his

memory, until he lived again the ecstasy and the anguish of that time.

The morning's reminiscences had moved coldly in his mind, but so intense

was his vision of the woman he had worshipped that she seemed bathed in

light.

He awoke suddenly. The Señora still slept, and her face was as placid as

in consciousness. It was slightly relaxed, but the time had not yet come

for the pathetic loss of muscular control. Still, she looked so large

and brown and stout that Talbot rose abruptly with an echo of the agony

that had returned in sleep, and entered the _sala_ and stood

deliberately before the portrait. It had been painted by an artist of

much ability. There was atmosphere behind it, which in the dim room

detached it from the canvas; and the curved red mouth smiled, the eyes

flashed with the triumph of youth and much conquest, the skin was as

white as the moon-flowers in the fields at night.

Talbot recalled the night he had taken this woman in his arms--not the

woman on the veranda--and involuntarily he raised them to the picture.

"And I thought it was over," he muttered, with a terrified gasp. "But I

believe I would give my immortal soul and everything I've accomplished

in life if she would come out of the frame and the past for an hour and

love me."

"Whatte you say?" drawled a gentle voice. "I fall asleep, no? Si you

ring that little bell Marcia bring the chocolate. You find it too hot

out here?"

"Oh, no; I prefer it out-of-doors. It is cooler now, and I like all the

air I can get."

He longed to get away, but he sipped his chocolate and listened to the

domestic details of his four vicarious daughters. The Señora was

immensely proud of her five grandchildren. Their photographs were all

over the house.

At six o'clock he shook hands with her and sprang on his horse. Half-way

down the avenue he turned his head, as usual. She stood on the veranda

still, and smiled pleasantly to him, moving one of her large brown hands

a little. He never saw the Señora again.