I can scarce tell why I did so. My first steps were altogether
mechanical--without thought or motive.
It might have been an instinct--a fascination--such as often attracts
the victim to the very danger it should avoid.
Prudence--experience, had I consulted it--would both have said to me:
"Go the other way. Go, and forget her! Him too--all that has happened.
'Tis not yet too late. You are but upon the edge of the Scylla of
passion. You may still shun it. Retire, and save yourself from its
Charybdis!"
Prudence and experience--what is either--what are both in the balance
against beauty? What were they when weighed against the charms of that
Mexican maiden?
Even the slight I had experienced could not turn the scale in their
favour! It only maddened me to know more; and perhaps it was this that
carried me along the pavement, on the footsteps of Francisco.
If not entertained at first, a design soon shaped itself--a sort of
morbid motive. I became curious to ascertain the condition of the man
who had supplanted me; or whom I had been myself endeavouring to
supplant with such slight success.
He had the air of a gentleman, and the bearing of a true _militario_--a
type I had more than once met with in the land of Anahuac--so long a
prey to the rule of the sabre.
There was nothing particularly martial about his habiliments.
As he passed lamp after lamp in his progress along the street, I could
note their style and character. A pair of dark grey trousers without
stripes; a cloak; a glazed hat--all after a fashion worn by the ordinary
_commerciantes_ of the place. I fancied I could perceive a certain
shabbiness about them--perhaps not so much that, as a threadbareness--
the evidence of long wear: for the materials were of a costly kind. The
cloak was of best broadcloth--the fabric of Spain; while the hat was
encircled by a bullion band, that, before getting tarnished by the touch
of time, must have shone splendidly enough.
These observations were not made without motive. I drew from them a
series of deductions. One, that could not be avoided: that my rival,
instead of being rich, was in the opposite condition of life--perhaps
penniless?
I was confirmed in this conjecture, as I saw him stop before the door of
an humble one-storied dwelling, in a street of corresponding
pretensions; thoroughly convinced of it as he lifted the latch with a
readiness that betokened it to be his home, and, without speaking to any
one, stepped inside.
The circumstances were conclusive; he was not one of the "ricos" of the
place. It explained the clandestine correspondence, and the caution
observed by her who flung down the _billetita_.
Instead of being solaced by the thought, it only increased my bitterness
of spirit. I should have been better pleased to have seen my rival
surrounded by splendour. A love unattracted by this must be indeed
disinterested--without the possibility of being displaced. No chance to
supplant the lover who is loved for himself. I did not harbour a hope.
A slight incident had given me the clue to a romantic tale. Mercedes
Villa-Senor, daughter of one of the richest men in the place--inhabiting
one of its grandest mansions--in secret correspondence with a man
wearing a threadbare coat, having his home in one of the lowliest
dwellings to be found in the City of the Angels!
I was not much surprised at the discovery. I knew it to be one of the
"Cosas de Mexico." But the knowledge did not lessen my chagrin.