DON ANABEL AND HIS FAMILY
Don Anabel Lopez was proud of his station in the secure and far-flung
territory of New Spain which his forbears had first found and conquered
nearly three centuries before his time. He claimed descent straight from
a Spanish grandee who had accompanied the expedition of settlement of
Juan de Oñate in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Don Anabel
felt that the riches of this vast territory belonged rightfully to those
who had held it through so many generations for the glory of the Spanish
crown, which at last, in this year of grace 1828, had been thrown off
through a treaty of independence with her colony, Mexico.
Don Anabel’s sheep grazed over a range of a hundred miles. The
unnumbered buffalo were his cattle; his slaves the peons that lived upon
the extensive lands granted his grandsires. To Don Anabel’s warehouses
the Indians brought the pelts of beaver, lynx, fox, the hides and robes
of buffalo and deer. These he exchanged with the great fur-traders of
the north at a profit that would have made them wince, had they known
that he himself had acquired them for a handful of tawdry merchandise
and home-distilled liquors.
Every six months his caravan of burros labored up the Cordilleras from
the City of Mexico, bringing all manner of merchandise for the people
and for the aristocrats of New Spain. Always there were luxuries brought
from Spain and from the far markets of the earth. The Mexican hidalgos
prided themselves on having none but imported furniture in their
establishments, but Don Anabel considered this an affectation, as it was
obviously impossible for the dons of New Mexico.
Don Anabel was proud of living in a way that his Spanish forbears might
have lived in that Old Spain which was so like this New Spain. His great
adobe hacienda might have been considered only a vast mud house by the
European, but it covered nearly an acre of ground. The patio within was
fifty feet square, and if the inner walls were whitewashed instead of
carved and paneled in fine woods, yet they were hung with brocades and
strangely beautiful fabrics now no longer woven, which were made from
the silken hair of Peruvian llamas or spun from some flax-like Mexican
plant. The carved furniture had a rude and florid beauty that was
mediæval, and, like the native Aztec lords of Mexico, the proud
Montezumas, Don Anabel’s table was served with dishes of purest silver
only.
Don Anabel was feared and respected by his servants, his tenants, and
his family. Indulgent in all that made for material comfort, he exacted
a deference, not only towards himself as head of the family, but among
one another. He was autocrat and despot, and though his courtesy was as
exquisite as that of any courtier diplomat of the outside world, his
discipline was harsh; cruel even. He had never whipped his children, but
had punished Luis, when he was a naughty, wilful, kicking child, in ways
that made the lad subservient, secretive. For who would court a bath in
the snow in winter merely to practice the dubious virtue of
truthfulness? He was stoic, for who would cry when water was poured down
his throat till he drowned, strangled, and his screams and throbbing
head were drenched to shuddering, smothered sobs.
Perhaps the example of Indian discipline had had its effect on Don
Anabel, although towards his small daughter he practiced no such heroic
measures. Yet they were not necessary. Fear of her father’s displeasure
was sufficient to still one of Consuelo’s tantrums. His solemn entrance
upon the scene of biting, scratching, shrieking, spitting, and other
infantile atrocities was enough to secure trembling silence, proper
behavior, and the obedient reception of oil of the castor bean, or
whatever else it was that aroused Consuelo’s displeasure and her violent
_disgusto_.
Doña Gertrudis de Chaves y Lopez was exactly the wife for Don Anabel.
Her pansy-like beauty when she had come to the hacienda as a bride of
sixteen was never marred by tempests. She bloomed, had eight babies,
only two of which lived, and grew fat, all without ever questioning her
husband’s authority. In her own domain she grew highly excited on
important domestic occasions, such as involved the vast responsibility
of perfectly bleached sheets, properly seasoned enchiladas, and claret
with the venison if the archbishop came to dinner.
It was thought due to her common origin that she molested herself with
such things, and Doña Gertrudis made a great pretense of never stepping
within the kitchen--save us, no! For there were those who said that Doña
Gertrudis was not of pure Spanish blood; that her grandmother had been
Aztecan, descended from an Aztec lord. You could see for yourself that
her hair was not fine and wispy like Don Anabel’s, but heavy, coarse,
though lustrous. But no breath of that! Doña Gertrudis was most devout
and her devotions occupied a large part of her time. She did, indeed, a
great deal of secret good, and followed often behind Don Anabel’s visits
to his ranchos with a soft touch to smooth the sternly dispensed
justice.
If Don Anabel’s word was law within his own home, his influence extended
no less outside his estates. His father had been a governor of New
Mexico, and Don Anabel’s word carried great weight with the successive
_jefe politicos_ of the territory of New Mexico. Chihuahua, the seat of
government of this province, of which Santa Fe was the chief city,
numbering as it did a thousand souls, was three months’ travel to the
south. The capital of Mexico was more than nine hundred leagues to the
south. Little did the President of the new republic interfere with the
overlordship of the _jefe politico_ of the northern territory. At one
time Mexican officials had intervened jealously over the intrusion of
venturesome Yankees from beyond the mountains, who came exploring and
were followed by trains of fresh traders.
They dared to bring in from eastward the goods that Mexico had always
supplied to the farthermost parts of New Spain. The luckless ones had
been thrown into prison, had languished in Chihuahua jails for a decade,
but as soon as they returned to their northern homes it was but to send
more and more pack animals back across the deserts.
Don Anabel himself had from the first resented these intruders bitterly.
To him the white men from across the plains were still colonists of the
hereditarily hated English. They were thrown into the _carcel_, hindered
in every way, yet still they came! And in the end Don Anabel traded with
them, as every one else did. It was to his advantage. He could not
afford not to.
On the morning after this last invasion Don Anabel, straight,
forbidding, stood in his warehouse, taking stock not only of
merchandise, but of things in general. Luis, a trifle nervous, but much
quicker than usual to anticipate his father’s moods and requests, stood
by with pencil and pad, while the clerks ran hither and thither.
“And ten bolts of the cotton cloth, with but two more of the linen,”
concluded Don Anabel. “They are an ill-mannered lot,” he resumed his
grievance, “bursting into a gentleman’s house while he is at dinner with
his family. Turning the dances into low brawls. El Coronel St. Vrain is
the only one with any measure of dignity or discretion.”
“Discreet indeed,” murmured Luis, sarcastically. “We had better hurry if
we are to get the best of the goods.”
“And your mother tells me that while she was at the _baile_ another
piece of silver disappeared from the cupboard. You remember that the
last time a caravan arrived the same thing happened. I’ll shoot the next
sneaking _ladron_ I lay my hands on.”
“It is terrible,” assented Luis, unmoved, as he checked over the bolts
of cloth. “Well, shall we go on to the trading?”
They left the warehouse in charge of an overseer and walked down the
crooked street, crossed the bridge below which the Santa Fe River
flowed, a sparkling racing little stream, and after several turns came
to the plaza. There in a large bodega the caravaners had set out their
goods. In a short while business would begin. Luis’ eyes searched the
Americans assembled in the bodega. Colonel St. Vrain, his young friend,
Steven Mercer, Bragdon, a small boy who was the brother of the
fair-haired girl--ah, the sister had not come, then. Just as well. He
would contrive better opportunities to see this disdainful _exquisita_.
The traders were spreading out their merchandise on the long low tables
that served for counters. Several of them were disposing of their goods
outside, from the wagons, which were surrounded by Pueblo Indians from
Tesuque, above Santa Fe, from Taos, and from the pueblos down upon the
Rio Grande. Silver exchanged hands rapidly within the bodega, while
outside furs and supple deer hides were bartered for the manufactured
articles coveted by the Indians.
Bragdon had already disposed outside of the wagonful of goods which he
had acquired on the Trail through the death of the two New England
traders. He had earrings, rope, paint, cheap knives and good knives,
liquor, and sugar. He had increased the amount of his whisky by diluting
a gallon at least one half, and obtaining for the diluted pints a
buffalo hide each, or the equivalent in the nearer pelts of the Rockies.
The sugar had been amplified by a method all his own and appeared to
satisfy the unaccustomed palate of the Indian just as well as the purer
product. Bragdon worked quickly and had as quickly retired into the
bodega, where he was now ready to dispose of his higher-grade goods.
A line of nankeen trousers was interesting the young men of the town.
They sold out rapidly, and the majority were donned at once. Bragdon’s
shoes did not meet with approval, however, and Luis scornfully laid down
the pair he had been considering when he had discovered that they were
neither rights nor lefts, but straight lasts, to be worn on either foot.
“What! These are not _de modo_. Does he think we know nothing here?”
Bragdon was much taken aback, but later was able to convince other
purchasers of the advantages of the good old-fashioned shoe that would
go on either foot. His snipe toes, Bonapartes, goose-and-ganders, Swiss
hunting, were soon disposed of. And then came Bragdon’s prize. He opened
a case in which were numerous small boxes. Opening one, he extracted a
sliver of wood tipped with a yellow and blue substance. Calling
attention to what he was about to do, he struck the small stick upon a
wall and immediately it flamed, burning like a tiny taper with a full
flame, and emitting a sulphurous odor. Bragdon set the flame to his
pipe, puffed in, and lit it; then taking a cigarette from the hand of
the astonished Steven, he lit that too before the flame flickered and
died out, having consumed the small stick.
“_Diablo!_ What is it?” The Santa Feans went wild.
“Matches,” said Bragdon, “they are called; a new thing, just discovered
in England last year. I have with me here some of the very first packet
brought into the United States. You will see that they are
phosphorescent?” he held up one proudly.
“_Fosforo!_” shouted some one, and the name stuck. Everyone gathered
round to see the miracle. Fire in a minute. No scratching of flintlocks,
no need of burning glasses.
“_Por mi vida_ (By my life),” said St. Vrain to Steven, “it is a pity
that he could not have produced one of those little boxes that wet night
when we could not strike flint or rub a stick to heat a bit of broth for
his own young. _Sacré!_”
The packages went like tortillas, and Bragdon had at length to admit
that there were no more. Don Anabel was himself enormously interested,
and pleased, too, with this new fancy, though it was his opinion that
the things were not in the least practical and would never be of much
real use or value.
It was annoying, but he had to pay the tall youth, who was again thrust
upon him by St. Vrain, at the rate of four dollars a yard for the two
bolts of linen which he decided to take, and in the end he was induced
also to buy for his own use and for the use of Doña Gertrudis a piece of
cloth, a fine black it was, at twenty dollars the yard. Luis did a good
piece of work here in forcing the American down a dollar a yard. This
exertion was not at all distasteful to Luis. It appealed to the gaming
instinct which every youth of Mexico or New Spain had.
St. Vrain, on the other hand, had been forced that morning to pay thirty
dollars apiece for the ten mules which he was taking back to Taos with
him, where he and Charles Bent would need them in conducting their
branch of the trade that had grown up about Bent’s Fort. Salt at five
dollars a load was not difficult to dispose of, although any New Mexican
could haul it himself from various places for even less than that
amount. St. Vrain showed Steven a pretty little mare which he bought at
once for eleven dollars and of which he at once became very fond.
By noon everyone was ready to stop. A good deal remained to be disposed
of, and yet an extremely good business had been done. “I do not mind
paying thirty dollars for the mules,” St. Vrain confided to Steven, as
he locked his warehouse door behind him, “as long as I am not forced to
buy back my own mules as those poor chaps did last year. Not four days
from La Villa their mules were all stampeded off, nearly three hundred
of them, and, having been forced to return to Santa Fe on foot to
purchase more, they were offered their own animals and had to buy them
back. And they are not nearly so good, either, these mules of New
Mexico, as your large Louisiana jackass. Did you notice that Bragdon had
six of his mules die in harness just as they reached the end of the
Trail?”
“No wonder, with the load he carried and the way he pushed them.”
“Trade is not nearly so good this year as it was last,” St. Vrain
considered. “It’s due to such treatment here in Santa Fe and to the
terrible ferocity of the Indians. Why, last year there were a hundred
wagons to the thirty of this summer. The amount of merchandise brought
in and the business done was more than three times as much as for this
summer.”
They were walking up the narrow street and Steven now was getting his
first real glimpse of Santa Fe. There were no sidewalks and the walls of
the houses rose straight from the road. There were occasional glimpses
into green patios, and fragrant sprays of deep pink tamarack drooped
occasionally over the walls, waving their plumes against a very blue
sky. When it wished, the reserve of Old Spain was well housed behind
those shuttered windows and crooked little doors. Yet when so disposed
it could overflow merrily into the street, or peer intimately from
windows through which a hand could thrust to pluck at one’s cloak as he
passed, to pick one’s pocket, or to drop a note within the hand.
One may imagine Steven’s surprise to feel a crumpled piece of paper come
into contact with his palm. He closed his finger upon the fragment and
looked swiftly down. But only the barred shutters of a little blue
window were there, and he walked on with scarcely a halt in his stride.
“Indeed!” he replied to the colonel, politely, and answered
intelligently upon matters of the trade until they reached the house,
where the colonel went to see that lunch was forthcoming at once, before
siesta. Then Steven opened his hand and spread out the crumpled paper,
half foolishly, half expectantly. Was it from Don Tiburcio de Garcia?
In a fine, painstaking script the note ran thus:
Señor Estevan Mercer: Will you not come below the _balcon_
where first we met yesterday, at the tenth hour tonight?
I should esteem it a favor, as I have a word for your safety.
Consuelo Lucero Lopez y Chavez.
Steven was looking for intrigue. But political, not the intrigue of
lovely ladies. Still, pleased and puzzled, he revolved the matter in his
mind for a moment. Ceran St. Vrain had warned him against girls, this
girl in particular. Colonel Bent had warned him against political
entanglements. And here he was getting nicely tied up in both, it
seemed. For of course he would be beneath the _balcon_ at the stroke of
ten. Oh well, time enough yet. Here he was, and he hadn’t done anything,
so far. He’d been forced to slight the señorita the night before, and
not of his own accord or liking, either. He must make apology for that,
in any event. A wonder she would bother about him at all.
Steven’s modesty was not greater than that of the average decent youth,
perhaps, yet to tell the truth, as he was unfamiliar with the manners of
this new old world, he had not realized that Consuelo was indicating any
special favor for him by her actions of the night before. He had seen
her twice before that day, and she was smiling at him in pleasant
recognition. He had already asked Hope Bragdon to promenade. In New
Orleans he had been well schooled in the proper thing to do. Well, at
all events, he would be under that balcony at ten.
Had Consuelo been able to know of that decision it would have saved her
much suspense. Relegated to her room for the day, she was in disgrace.
Yet it was a relief to be there, away from the incessant agitation of
Doña Gertrudis’ tongue. Scarcely had the wavering candles been relit in
the dance hall the night before when Doña Gertrudis, sweeping her
daughter before her, and surrounded by their elderly neighbors and their
cousins and their aunts, poured out of the place and down the street,
_duennas_ and _muchachas_, chaperons and girls. While some were
frightened and many were elated, they themselves were in reality in no
danger. The indignant clatter of Doña Gertrudis’ tongue would have
caused every drunken trapper or jovial Spaniard to give her a wide
berth. When they had reached their own home she poured out her
indignation again to Don Anabel.
Imagine, Consuelo, ungrateful daughter of no consideration, had again
this night insulted such a noble gentleman as Don Tiburcio. “_Si!_ I saw
with my own eyes.” And moreover, she had smiled openly at the Americano,
the very trader who had been at their house that same night. At the
first of these charges Don Anabel became very stern and dignified. At
the second he flew into a fiery rage.
“I will myself have this young scoundrel thrown into jail,” he stormed.
“But what for, papa?” Consuelo protested, aghast at the storm her
behaviour had evoked. No matter. She should keep to her room the whole
of the following day and learn better how to conduct herself with her
inferiors. And so she had, alternating between regret and fury that the
ruddy-haired trader had not danced with her. Shortly before noon the
faded and faithful Felicita came tiptoeing in, to report all the news.
After recounting the events of the morning’s trading, what her father
had bought, and how the father of the blonde girl had made fire with
naught but a tiny splinter (and she knew, therefore, that he must indeed
be in league with the devil), Felicita’s pock-marked face blanched at
this, she whispered, “The _caballero_, the young gentleman who stopped
beneath the balcony yesterday afternoon--your brother Señor Luis, has
threatened that if that one does not abandon the white girl he, Don
Luis, will attend to the Yanqui’s funeral himself.
“Yes, and even Don Tiburcio, señorita, is enchanted, they say, by the
fair-haired American, and followed the merchants to their house last
night. Surely there will be trouble for the handsome lad.” Felicita
sighed, for, though old at thirty, romance had not departed from her,
and when peeping over the window ledge the day before, she had seen the
youth stop, look up and smile at her mistress--as who did not--and bid
her good afternoon.
Consuelo’s rage against Estevan Mercer, if that was what they called
him, melted into a swift flow of concern. How terrible! She had brought
all this upon him. This was a pleasanter thought than that he had
brought it upon himself or that Luis was merely visiting his wrath upon
Steven.
“What will Luis do, Felicita?” Consuelo barely breathed the question.
“He will shoot or knife him, señorita, the first time he catches him out
at night.”
“Oh, I must tell Don Estevan! Where is the American now, Felicita? At
the warehouse? Good! good! Quick, Felicita! Give me pencil and paper.”
Felicita flew; her young mistress was educated, she could write. This
was important.
Consuelo wrote, folded a tiny missive, thrust it into Felicita’s hands.
“Here, run with it to the house of my aunt Juana on the street leading
from the bodega to the house of Doña Katarina. See if you cannot catch
him if he passes that way. I must warn him.” She pushed the willing
Felicita out the door just as Doña Gertrudis’ step was heard coming in.
Consuelo flew to the bed, and when Doña Gertrudis entered was lying with
her head pillowed on her arm, fast asleep.
Siesta; and a long afternoon that dragged through hot, golden hours.
Later, in the garden, when there was no trading for the day, Don Anabel
sat with Don Tiburcio, drinking a bottle of berry wine that had been
cooling in the acequia since that morning.
“It is extraordinary, the amount of goods that those Yanquis pulled out
of their wagons this morning,” said Don Tiburcio. “It is incredible,
actually. I should have judged that a wagon could have carried but half
the amount. But it is to our advantage. Both in the quantity of the
useful goods that they bring and in the quality. Competition is
invariably a great spur to trade, Don Anabel.”
“Perhaps, as you say, this trade with the Yanquis stimulates our
business,” Don Anabel conceded, reluctantly, “but it has many other
aspects that are undesirable.”
“Yes, it has,” agreed Don Tiburcio, thinking of Steven Mercer and the
American girl. Was she in love with her countryman? He thought not. She
seemed to be in love with no one. She was a saint, as delicately tinted
as plaster, and as cold, perhaps as hard. He was fascinated; caught on
the rebound of his emotions. He realized it. Was he always to love the
unattainable? Don Anabel was talking on.
“I have never seen such a vast amount of goods produced as from those
wagons. They have already taken in a great deal of silver. But there
will be sizable duties upon it, so they will not have the clear profit
they look for. Instead of repelling this growing trade and discouraging
it,” Don Anabel was arguing, “Colonel Viscarra is doing everything to
protect the traders. He himself escorted Colonel Bent’s party from the
border to the Fort, and but just missed coming back with this caravan.
He has dashed off now to put down a border warfare with the Texans and
the Crees. Texas has been claiming, as you know, that the southern route
of the Santa Fe Trail lies through her territory. She demands the right
of _arancel_, the return-trip duties, instead of Santa Fe.” This seemed
to annoy Don Anabel exceedingly, though he’d have admitted no
inconsistency in his attitude.
“I think Viscarra has the right policy,” replied Don Tiburcio, suavely.
“We shall have to come to rely to a certain extent upon American trade.
The old opposition that the traders were sent as spies upon our
government has been shown to be without foundation.”
“I do not know,” replied Don Anabel, quickly; “certainly they were
looking into the country and the possibilities of trade. La Lande would
have gone back, only he found he could prosper here, and as the goods
with which he set himself up in business here did not belong to him, but
to his employer back on the Missouri River, he would have had to make an
accounting had he returned. Pursley--well, we all want to make Pursley’s
stay agreeable; or his departure formidable, rather.”
“Don Anabel laughed a frankly cynical laugh. He came here, you may
remember, as an emissary. Was one of a thousand men who first crossed
our northern Andes, with two thousand animals. In Pursley’s pockets were
nuggets of pure gold. He alone knew exactly where he had picked them up.
That tale returned across the Trail. But Pursley remains here.
“The question is,” Don Anabel resumed, after a moment’s sipping of his
cordial, “to whom does this country belong? To us, the Spaniards who
have held it for three centuries, ever since Cabeza de Baca first found
it, or to these upstart colonials who have been free from England’s
skirts for hardly half a century? Santa Fe is not large. She is remote
from Mexico--and its political storms”--Don Tiburcio winced--“and for
that very reason little able to withstand a horde of Yanquis coming like
bull-headed buffalo over the Trail. The more you kill, the more there
are, apparently. Will Mexico fight for us, or is she no longer Spanish?
Has she thrown off the traditions of Spain along with the yoke of
Spain?”
“I do not know,” Don Tiburcio replied, slowly. “Last winter Mexico
expelled all the Cachupines. Every Spanish-born citizen, including the
friars, even, and drove out Gomez Pedraza, the first President they had
been able to elect constitutionally. That,” he concluded, dryly, “in
connection with our treaty of independence of January last year, might
be construed as a severing of identity with Spain, and the development
of a national identity.”
“National disintegration,” declared Don Anabel. “Mexico was never united
until Cortez came. A handful of scattered tribes that even the great
Montezuma did not pretend to keep together. Spain’s imprint will never
depart, no matter how much you throw off the ‘yoke.’ This whole country
is New Spain.”
“Yet one day I think you will find that you, too, will be throwing off
Mexico; allegiance is more geographic than of blood. Your capital may be
eastward in another century.”
“No,” said Don Anabel, violently. “New Mexico this territory has been
since Antonio de Espejo named us in 1583; Santa Fe has been the seat of
government since sixteen five, and so shall they always be. Our
boundaries began at New Galicia, and extended to New Biscay, and they
shall never retreat so far as I can help it.”
“Señor,” replied Don Tiburcio, with frank admiration of the older man in
his eyes, “you may be mistaken, but you are admirable, señor.”
* * * * *
Don Tiburcio was relieved not to see Consuelo at dinner that night.
Dinner was a quiet affair, with Doña Gertrudis much subdued, Luis
abstracted. Don Tiburcio could not like Luis wholly, but there was a
certain careless gayety and deference about the boy that was most
charming. The family separated immediately after the meal and Don
Tiburcio departed up the street where Ceran St. Vrain was lodging; Luis
disappeared; and Doña Gertrudis went to see if her poor little Consuelo
had eaten her supper, and found her already in bed, so retired herself.
_Valga-me!_ it was ten minutes to ten o’clock.
No sooner had her mother departed than Consuelo leaped from her bed,
patted the bolster into her own place, pulling the covers up deftly over
it. She snatched her shoes from under the bed, flung a white lace scarf
over her tumbled hair, and tiptoed through the door at the opposite end
of the room, across the room of the sleeping grandmother, into another
chamber, unoccupied, and beyond to Felicita’s room. There stood her
slave, shivering with excitement, and steadied a chair while Consuelo
mounted to the _balcon_, where she crouched, peering between the crudely
turned bars.
A yellow harvest moon was just rising over the Sangre de Cristo. Before
long its radiance would flood the quiet street. Now it gave but a slight
glow. The street below was empty. Consuelo’s heart thumped so loudly
that at first she thought it the beat of a horse’s hoofs on the road.
_Dios!_ If he did not come. It would be simply not to be supported! She
held her breath in an agony of listening. Not a sound, not a footfall,
not a breath stirring. Desperately she peered over the railing. He was
there, below the _balcon_, close to the wall. Imagine!
She rose bravely and leaned over. “Señor, I thank you for coming. I
wished to tell you that you are in danger, señor.”
“It does not matter, señorita. It would be worth it to see you.” Was
this he, Steven Mercer, talking? _Maman_ would quite approve of his
pretty speeches.
“Ah, but not just this moment. I mean all the while, señor, when you may
be abroad at night. For that reason I wished to warn you. Do not go
unarmed at night, nor to out-of-the-way places by day, I beg of you.”
She was pleading so earnestly that Steven looked up in surprise, at once
serious.
“Have you heard anyone threatening me, Señorita Lopez?” he asked.
“Oh, I have heard of threats. My brother Luis he threatens because you
danced with the fair girl last night and she would not walk with him. He
thinks--you are in love with her, señor?----”
“And would it be his affair if I were?” replied Steven, with a trace of
asperity. “But I am not, señorita. She is my countrywoman, and I am
bound to protect her and be courteous to her. That is all.”
“I am glad for that.” There was no doubting the sighing voice from the
balcony, “but that is not all, Señor Estevan. You are American, and must
be very discreet here in Santa Fe. It would be awful to have bloodshed.
Although I suppose you are used to that.”
“Oh yes, more or less,” replied Steven, modestly. “The mosquitoes on the
Trail were frightful. I lost simply quarts to them.”
Consuelo looked startled. Felicita was pulling at her skirts from below.
“I must go, señor. I may be discovered.” She was peering over the rail
at him, and all he could see was her eyes and nose. A wave of genuine
gratitude, of pleasure, of moonlight and youth, swept Steven up to the
rail. Pulling himself up on a level with it, he implanted a kiss on the
small fingers clutching there. But somehow the kiss landed instead on a
nose.
With a little gasp Consuelo dropped out of sight. Steven slipped to the
ground, leaped to the dark side of the street, and, for a novice, lost
himself very successfully in the shadows just as the moon escaped fully
from the mountains.