THE General had never known women; he had only known what
men (and women, too) say of women. At Paris, and Madrid, he had seen
his friends see dancers, figurantes; he did not confound other women
with these, but he had known none other. Of girls, in particular, he
was ignorant. A man of Latin race never sees a girl; in America, North
America, it is different, and one sometimes wonders if we justify it.
Some weeks after the General got back to his camp (which was high
up amid the huge mountain, the first mainland that Columbus saw,
which fends the Gulf of Paria from the sea), he was astounded by the
appearance of no less a person than his nephew Ramon. He had broken
with the royal cause, he said, and come to seek service beneath
his uncle. He did not say what statement he had left behind him in
Carácas--no explanation was necessary in the then Venezuela for
joining any war--but how he had justified his delaying his coming
nuptials with Dolores. For he loved her, this young fellow; yet he
said--allowed it to be said--that in the process _de se ranger_,
in the process of arrangement, for his bride, that she might find her
place unoccupied, certain other arrangements had been necessary which
took time.
He did not tell this story to his uncle, who took him and sought to
make a soldier of him. Not this story; but he told him that he loved
Dolores; and his uncle--was he not twenty years younger?--believed him.
Twenty years, or fifteen; ’tis little difference when you pass the
decade.
But the General found him hard material to work up. He was ready enough
at a private brawl; ready enough, if the humor struck him, to go at
the enemy; but not to lead his men there. And his men were readier to
gamble with him than to follow him; though brave enough, in a way.
Yet the General Marquis blinded his faults--aye, and paid his
debts--for when he lost at “pharaon” a certain pearl he wore, the
uncle bought it back for him, with a caution to risk his money, not
his honor; at which the young captain grit his teeth, and would have
challenged any but a creditor. And when a certain girl, a Spanish
woman, followed him to camp, del Torre knew of it, and helped Ramon to
bid her go; and if the General thought the worse of him, he did not
think Dolores loved him less; for was not Sebastian himself brought up
on that cruel half-truth that some women still do their sex the harm to
make a whole one? that women love a rake reformed. Then came a battle,
and both were wounded, and more concessions from his Catholic Majesty;
and in their wake the wounded gentlemen went back to Carácas.
The General’s hair was grayer, and in that stay again he saw Dolores
only once, and that was in church. At mass, high mass, _Te Deum_,
for the Catholic Majesty’s concessions, Don Ramon stood behind her
chair; and del Torre saw them from a pillar opposite, and again the
girl countess blushed. And after mass the new Archbishop met him in the
street and talked--of him, and of his ward, and of Don Ramon.
“He is a graceless reprobate,” said this peon-priest.
The Marquis sighed. “A soldier--for a brave man there is always hope.”
The Archbishop eyed him.
“She loves him?”
“She loves him.”
“He is poor!”
“She is rich.”
“You should marry her,” said the Archbishop, and shrugged his shoulders.
A week after he met them all again; and this was that evening in the
garden.