The Doomswoman Part 13

As the contradanza and its ensuing waltz finished, Estenega went up to Chonita. "You are too tired to dance any more to-night," he said. "Let us sit here and talk. Besides, I do not like to see you whirling about the room in men's arms."

"It is nothing to you if I dance with other men," she said, rebelliously, although she took the seat he indicated. "And to dance is not wrong."

"Nothing is wrong. In some countries the biggest liar is king. We know as little of ethics--except, to be sure, the ethics of civilization--as one s.e.x knows of another. So we fall back on instinct. I have not a prejudice, but I feel it disgusting to see a woman who is somewhat more to me than other women, embraced by another man. It would infuriate me if done in private; why should it not at least disgust me in public? I care as little for the approving seal of the conventions as I care whether other women--including my own sisters--waltz or not."

And, alas! from that night Chonita never waltzed again. "It is not that I care for his opinion," she a.s.sured me later; "only he made me feel that I never wanted a man to touch me again."

Valencia used every art of flas.h.i.+ng eyes and pouting lips and gay sally--there was nothing subtle in her methods--to win Estenega to her side; but the sofa on which he sat with Chonita might have been the remotest star in the firmament. Then, prompted by pique and determination to find ointment for her wounded vanity, she suddenly opened her batteries upon Reinaldo. That beautiful young bridegroom was bored to the verge of dissolution by his solemn and sleepy Prudencia, who kept her wide eyes upon him with an expression of rapt adoration, exactly as she regarded the Stations in the Mission when performing the Via Crucis. Valencia, to his mind, was the handsomest woman in the room, and he felt the flattery of her a.s.sault. Besides, he was safely married. So he drifted to her side, danced with her, flirted with her, devoted himself to her caprices, until every one was noting, and I thought that Prudencia would bawl outright. Just in the moment, however, when our nerves were humming, Don Guillermo thumped on the door with his stick and ordered us all to go to bed.

XIX.

The next morning we started at an early hour for the Rancho de las Rocas, three leagues from Santa Barbara. The populace remained in the booth, but we were joined by all our friends of the town, and once more were a large party. We were bound for a merienda and a carnesada, where bullocks would be roasted whole on spits over a bed of coals in a deep excavation. It took a Californian only a few hours to sleep off fatigue, and we were as fresh and gay as if we had gone to bed at eight the night before.

Valencia managed to ride beside Estenega, and I wondered if she would win him. Woman's persistence, allied to man's vanity, so often accomplishes the result intended by the woman. It seemed to me the simplest climax for the unfolding drama, although I should have been sorry for Diego.

It was Reinaldo's turn to look black, but he devoted himself ostentatiously to Prudencia, who beamed like a child with a stick of candy. Chonita rode between Don Juan de la Borrasca and Adan. Her face was calm, but it occurred to me that she was growing careless of her sovereignty, for her manner was abstracted and indifferent; she seemed to have discarded those little coquetries which had sat so gracefully upon her. Still, as long as she concealed the light of her mind under a bushel, her beauty and Lorleian fascination would draw men to her feet and keep them there. Every man but Estenega and Alvarado was as gay of color as the wild flowers had been, and the girls, as they cantered, looked like full-blown roses. Chonita wore a dark-blue gown and reboso of thin silk, which became her fairness marvelously well.

"Dona Chonita, light of my eyes," said Don Juan, "thou art not wont to be so quiet when I am by thee."

"Thou usually hast enough to say for two."

"Ay, thou canst appreciate the art of speech. Hast thou ever known any one who could converse with lighter ease than I and thy brother?"

"I never have heard any one use more words."

"Ay! they roll from my tongue--and from Reinaldo's--like wheels downhill."

She turned to Adan: "They will be happy, you think,--Reinaldo and Prudencia?"

"Ay!"

"What a beautiful wedding, no?"

"Ay!"

"Life is always the same with thee, I suppose,--smoking, riding, swinging in the hammock?"

"Ay!"

"Thou wouldst not exchange thy life for another? Thou dost not wish to travel?"

"No,--sure."

She wheeled suddenly and galloped over to her father and Alvarado, her caballeros staring helplessly after her.

When we arrived at the rancho the bullocks were already swinging in the pits, the smell of roast meat was in the air. We dismounted, throwing our bridles to the vaqueros in waiting; and while Indian servants spread the table, the girls joined hands and danced about the pit, throwing flowers upon the bullocks, singing and laughing. The men watched them, or amused themselves in various ways,--some with c.o.c.kfights and impromptu races; others began at once to gamble on a large flat stone; a group stood about a greased pole and jeered at two rival vaqueros endeavoring to mount it for the sake of the gold piece on the top. One buried a rooster in the ground, leaving its head alone exposed; others, mounting their horses, dashed by at full speed, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the head as they pa.s.sed. Reinaldo distinguished himself by twisting it off with facile wrist while urging his horse to the swiftness of the east wind.

"I am going to dare more than Californian has ever dared before," said Estenega to me, as we gathered at length about the table-cloth. "I am going to get Dona Chonita off by herself in that little canon and have a talk with her. Now, do you stand guard."

"I shall not!" I exclaimed. "It is understood that when Dona Trinidad stays at home Chonita is in my charge. I will not permit such a thing."

"Thou wilt, my Eustaquia. Dona Chonita is no pudding-brained girl. She needs no duena."

"I know that; but it is not that I am thinking of. Suppose some one sees you; thou knowest the inflexibility of our conventions."

"You forget that we are _comadre_ and _compadre_. Our privileges are many." He abruptly dismissed the intimate "thou," with his usual American perversity.

"True; I had forgotten. But whither is all this tending, Diego? She neither will nor can marry you."

"She both can and will. Will you help me, or not? Because if not I shall proceed without you. Only you can make it easier."

I always gave way to him; everybody did.

He was as good as his word. How he managed, Chonita never knew, but not a half-hour after dinner she found herself alone in the canon with him, seated among the huge stones cataclysms had hurled there.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked.

"To talk with you."

"But this would be severely censured."

"Do you care?"

"No."

She looked at him with a curious feeling she had had before; there was something inside of his head that she wanted to get at,--something that baffled and teased and allured her. She wanted to understand him, and she was oppressed by the weight of her ignorance; she had no key to unlock a man like that. With one of her swift impulses she told him of what she was thinking.

He smiled, his eyes lighting. "I am more than willing you should know all that you would be curious about," he said. "Ask me a hundred questions; I will answer them."

She meditated a moment. She never had taken sufficient interest in a man before to desire to fathom him, and the arts of the Californian belle were not those of the tactfully and impartially interested woman of to-day. She did not know how to begin.

"What have you read?" she asked, at length.

He gave her some account of his library,--a large one,--and mentioned many books of many nations, of which she had never heard.

"You have read all those books?"

"There are many long winter nights and days in the redwood forests of the northern coast."

"That does not tell me much,--what you have read. I feel that it is but one of the many items which went to the making up of you. You have traveled everywhere, no? Was it like living over again the books of travel?"

"Not in the least. Each man travels for himself."

"Madame de Stael said that traveling was sad. Is it so?"