_ CHAPTER IV
The party deserted the table for the garden, there to idle until evening should give them the dance. All of the men and most of the women smoked cigaritos, the latter using the gold or silver holder, supporting it between the thumb and finger. The high walls of the garden were covered with the delicate fragrant pink Castilian roses, and the girls plucked them and laid them in their hair.
"Does it look well, Don Diego?" asked one girl, holding her head coquettishly on one side.
"It looked better on its vine," he said, absently. He was looking for Chonita, who had disappeared. "Roses are like women: they lose their subtler fragrance when plucked; but, like women, their heads always droop invitingly."
"I do not understand thee, Don Diego," said the girl, fixing her wide innocent eyes on the young man's inscrutable face. "What dost thou mean?"
"That thou art sweeter than Castilian roses," he said and passed on. "And how is, thy little one?" he asked a young matron whose lithe beauty had won his admiration a year ago, but to whom maternity had been too generous. She raised her soft brown eyes out of which the coquettish sparkle had gone.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" she cried. "And so smart, Don Diego. He beats the air with his little fists, and--Holy Mary, I swear it!--he winks one eye when I tickle him."
Estenega sauntered down the garden endeavoring to imagine Chonita fat and classified. He could not. He paused beside a woman who did not raise her eyes at once, but coquettishly pretended to be absorbed in the conversation of those about her. She too had been married a year and more, but her figure had not lost its elegance, and she was very handsome. Her coquetry was partly fear. Estenega's power was felt alike by innocent girls and chaste matrons. There were few scandals in those days; the women of the aristocracy were virtuous by instinct and rigid social laws; but, how it would be hard to tell, Estenega had acquired the reputation of being a dangerous man. Perhaps it had followed him back from the city of Mexico, where at one time, he had spent three years as diputado, and whence returned with a brilliant and startling record of gallantry. A woman had followed on the next ship, and, unless I am much mistaken, Diego passed many uneasy hours before he persuaded her to return to Mexico. Then old Don Jose Briones' beautiful young wife was found dead in her bed one morning, and the old women who dressed the body swore that there were marks of hard skinny fingers on her throat. Estenega had made no secret of his admiration of her. At different times girls of the people had left Monterey suddenly, and vague rumors had floated down from the North that they had been seen in the redwood forests where Estenega's ranchos lay. I asked him, point-blank, one day, if these stories were true, prepared to scold him as he deserved; and he remarked coolly that stories of that sort were always exaggerated, as well as a man's success with women. But one had only to look at that face, with its expression of bitter-humorous knowledge, its combination of strength and weakness, to feel sure that there were chapters in his life that no woman outside of them would ever read. I always felt, when with Diego Estenega, that I was in the presence of a man who had little left to learn of life's phases and sensations.
"The sun will freckle thy white neck," he said to the matron who would not raise her eyes.
"Shall I bring thy mantilla, Dona Carmen?"
She looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her soft black eyes suddenly before the penetrating gaze of the man who was so different from the caballeros.
"It is not well to be too vain, senor. We must think less of those things and more of--our Church."
"True; the Church may be a surer road to heaven than a good complexion, if less of a talisman on earth. Still I doubt if a freckled Virgin would have commanded the admiration of the centuries, or even of the Holy Ghost."
"Don Diego! Don Diego!" cried a dozen horrified voices.
"Diego Estenega, if it were any man but thou," I exclaimed, "I would have thee excommunicated. Thou blasphemer! How couldst thou?"
Diego raised my threatening hand to his lips. "My dear Eustaquia, it was merely a way of saying that woman should be without blemish. And is not the Virgin the model for all women?"
"Oh," I exclaimed, impatiently, "thou canst plant an idea in people's minds, then pluck it out before their very eyes and make them believe it never was there. That is thy power,--but not over me. I know thee." We were standing apart, and I had dropped my voice. "But come and talk to me awhile. I cannot stand those babies," and I indicated with a sweep of my fan the graceful, richly-dressed caballeros whose soft drooping eyes and sensuous mouths were more promising of compliments than conversation. "Neither Alvarado nor Castro is here. Thou too wouldst have gone in a moment had I not captured thee."
"On the contrary, I should have captured you. If we were not too old friends for flirting I should say that your handsome-ugly face is the most attractive in the garden. It is a pretty picture, though," he went on, meditatively,--"those women in their gay soft gowns, coquetting demurely with the caballeros. Their eyes and mouths are like flowers; and their skins are so white, and their hair so black. The high wall, covered with green and Castilian roses, was purposely designed by Nature for them. Sometimes I have a passing regret that it is all doomed, and a half-century hence will have passed out of memory."
"What do you mean?" I asked, sharply.
"Oh, we will not discuss the question of the future. I sent Castro away from the table in a towering rage, and it is too hot to excite you. Even the impassive Doomswoman became so angry that she could not eat her dinner."
"It is your old wish for American occupation--the bandoleros! No; I will not discuss it with you: I have gone to bed with my head bursting when we have talked of it before. You might have spared poor Jose. But let us talk of something else--Chonita. What do you think of her?"
"A thousand things more than one usually thinks of a woman after the first interview."
"But do you think her beautiful?"
"She is better than beautiful. She is original."
"I often wonder if she would be La Favorita of the South if it were not for her father's great wealth and position. The men who profess to be her slaves must have absorbed the knowledge that she has the brains they have not, although she conceals her superiority from them admirably: her pride and love of power demand that she shall be La Favorita, although her caballeros must weary her. If she made them feel their insignificance for a moment they would fly to the standard of her rival, Valencia Menendez, and her regalities would be gone forever. A few men have gone honestly wild over her, but I doubt if any one has ever really loved her. Such women receive a surfeit of admiration, but little love. If she were an unintellectual woman she would have an extraordinary power over men, with her beauty and her subtle charm; but now she is isolated. What a pity that your houses are at war!"
He had been looking away from me. As I finished speaking he turned his face slowly toward me, first the profile, which looked as if cut rapidly with a sharp knife out of ivory, then the full face, with its eyes set so deeply under the scraggy brows, its mouth grimly humorous. He looked somewhat sardonic and decidedly selfish. Well I knew what that expression meant. He had the kindest heart I had ever known, but it never interfered with a most self-indulgent nature. Many times I had begged him to be considerate of some girl who I knew charmed him for the moment only; but one secret of his success with women was his unfeigned if brief enthusiasm.
"Let her alone!" I exclaimed. "You cannot marry her. She would go into a convent before she would sacrifice the traditions of her house. And if you were not at war, and she married you, you would only make her miserably happy."
He merely smiled and continued to look me straight in the eyes. _