As the marriage could not take place without delay, Don Joaquin did not wish it to be unreservedly announced; the general inhabitants of the range might guess what they chose, but they were not at present to be informed.
"Mariquita may tell Gore," he explained to Sarella, "that is a family matter."
"And I am sure she will not tell him unless you order her to," said Sarella; "she does not think of him in that light."
"What light?" demanded Don Joaquin irritably.
"As one of the family," Sarella replied, without any irritation at all. Her placidity of temper was likely to be one of her most convenient endowments.
"I shall give her to understand," said Don Joaquin, "that there is no restriction on her informing Mr. Gore."
Sarella shrugged her pretty shoulders and made no comment.
Mariquita took her father's intimation as an order and obeyed, though surprised that he should not, if he desired Mr. Gore to know of his approaching marriage, tell him himself. Possibly, she thought, her father was a little shy about such a subject.
Mr. Gore received her announcement quite coolly, without any manifestation of surprise. It had not, as Don Joaquin had hoped it might, the least effect of hurrying his own steps.
"Am I," he inquired, "supposed to show that I have been told?"
"Oh, I think so."
So that night when they were alone, after the others had gone to their rooms, Gore congratulated his host.
"Thank you! You see," said Don Joaquin, assuming a tone of pathos that sat most queerly on him, "as time goes on, I should be very lonely."
He shook his head sadly, and Gore endeavored to look duly sympathetic.
"Sarella," the older man proceeded, "could not stop here—if she were not my wife—after Mariquita had left us."
Gore, who perfectly understood Mariquita's father and his diplomacy, would not indulge him by asking if his daughter were, then, likely to leave him.
So Don Joaquin sighed and had to go on.
"Yes! It would be very lonely for me, dependent as I am for society on Mariquita."
Here Gore, with some inward amusement, could not refrain from accusing his possible father-in-law of some hypocrisy; for he was sure the elderly gentleman would miss his daughter as little as any father could miss his child.
"Certainly," he said aloud, "it is hard to think how the range would get on without her."
No doubt, her absence would be hard to fill in the matter of usefulness, and Gore was inclined to doubt whether Sarella would even wish to fill it. He was pretty sure that that young woman would refuse to work as her cousin had worked.
"Itmustget on without her," Don Joaquin agreed, not without doubt, "when her time comes for moving to a home of her own."
Still Gore refused to "rise."
"We must be prepared for that," Mariquita's father went on, refilling his pipe. "She is grown up. It is natural she should be thinking of her own future—"
Gore suddenly felt angry with him, instead of being merely amused. To him it appeared a profanation of the very idea of Mariquita, to speak of her as indulging in surmises and calculations concerning her own matrimonial chances.
"It would not," he said, "be unnatural—but I am sure her mind is given to no such thoughts."
Don Joaquin slightly elevated his eyebrows.
"I do not know," he said coldly, "how you can answer for what her mind is given to. I, at any rate, must have such thoughts on her account. I am not English. English parents may, perhaps, leave all such things to chance. We, of my people, are not so. To us it seems the most important of his duties for a father to trust to no chances, but arrange and provide for his daughter's settlement in life."
Here the old fellow paused, and having shot his bolt, pretended it had been a mere parenthesis in answer to an implied criticism.
"But," he continued, "I have wandered from what I was really explaining. I was telling that soon I should, in the natural course of things, be left here alone, as regards home companionship, unless I myself tried to find a mate, so I tried and I have succeeded."
Here he bowed with great majesty and some complacence, as if he might have added, "Though you, in your raw youthfulness and conceit, may have thought me too old a suitor to win a lovely bride."
Gore responded by the heartiest felicitations. "Sir," he added after a brief pause, "since it seems to me that you wish it, I will explain my own position. I can well afford to marry. And I would wish very much to marry. But there is only one lady whom I have ever met, whom I have now, or ever, felt that I would greatly desire to win for my wife."
So far Don Joaquin had listened with an absolutely expressionless countenance of polite attention, though he had never been more interested.
"The lady," Gore continued, "is your daughter."
(Here that lady's father relaxed the aloofness of his manner, and permitted himself a look of benign, though not eager, approval.)
"It may be," the young man went on, "that you have perceived my wishes...."
(Don Joaquin would express neither negation nor assent.)
"Anyway, you know them now. But your daughter does not know them. To thrust the knowledge of them prematurely upon her would, I am sure, make the chance of her responding to them very much less hopeful. Therefore I have been slow and cautious in endeavoring to gain even a special footing of friendship with her; I have, lately, gained a little. I cannot flatter myself that it is more than a little; between us there is on her side only the mere dawn of friendship. That being so, I should have been unwilling to speak to yourself—lest it should seem like assuming that she had any sort of interest in me beyond what I have explained. I speak now because you clearly expect that I should. Well, I have spoken. But I am so greatly in eager earnest about this that I ask you plainly to allow me to endeavor to proceed with what, I think, you almost resent as a timidity of caution. It is my only chance."
Don Joaquin did not see that at all. If he were to inform Mariquita that Mr. Gore wished to become her husband and he, her father, wished her to become Mr. Gore's wife, he could not bring himself to picture such disobedience as any refusal on her part would amount to.
"Our way," he said, "is more direct than your fanciful English way; it regards not a young girl's fanciful delays, and timid uncertainty, but her solid welfare, and therefore her solid happiness. In reality it gets over her maiden modesty in the best way—by wise authority. She does not have to tell herself baldly, 'I have become in love with this young man,' but 'My parents have found this young man worthy to undertake the charge of my life and my happiness, and I submit to their experience and wisdom.' Then duty will teach her love; a safer teacher than fancy."
"I hope, sir," said Gore, "that you do not yourself propose that method."
"And if I did?"
"I would, though more earnestly desirous to win your daughter than I am desirous of anything in this life, tell you that I refuse to win her in that way. It never would win her."
"'Win her'! She is all duty—"
"Excuse me! No duty would command her to become my wife if she could only do so with repugnance. If you told her it was her duty I should tell her it was no such thing."
Don Joaquin was amazed at such crass stupidity. He flung his open hands upwards with angry protest. He was even suspicious. Did the young man reallywantto marry his daughter? It was much more evident that he was in earnest now, than it had been to Don Joaquin that he was in earnest before.
The elderly half-breed had not the least idea of blaming his own crude diplomacy; on the contrary, he had been pluming himself on its success. For some time he had desired to obtain from Gore a definite expression of his wish to marry Mariquita, and he had obtained it. That it had been speedily followed by this further pronouncement, incomprehensible to the girl's father, was nothisfault, but was due entirely to the Englishman's peculiarities, peculiarities that to Don Joaquin seemed perverse and almost suspicious.
"If you were a Spaniard," he said stiffly, "you would be grateful to me for being willing to influence my daughter in your favor."
Gore knew that he must be disturbed, as it was his rule to speak of himself not as a Spaniard, but as an American.
"I am grateful to you, sir, for being willing to let me hope to win your daughter for my wife—most grateful."
"You do not appear grateful to me for my willingness to simplify matters."
"They cannot be simplified—nor hurried. If your daughter can be brought to think favorably of me as one who earnestly desires to have the great, great honor and privilege of being the guardian of her life and its happiness, it must be gradually and by very gentle approaches. I hope that she already likes me, but I am sure she does not yet love me."
"Before she has been asked to be your wife! Love you! Certainly not. She will love her husband, for that will be her duty."
Gore did not feel at all like laughing; his future father-in-law's peculiarities seemed as perverse to him as his own did to Don Joaquin. He dreaded their operation; it seemed only too possible that Don Joaquin would be led to interference by them, and such interference he feared extremely; nor could he endure the idea of Mariquita's being dragooned by her father.
"If," he declared stoutly, "you thrust prematurely upon your daughter the idea of me as her husband, you will make her detest the thought of me, and I nevershallbe her husband."
Don Joaquin was offended.
"I am not used to do anything prematurely," he said grimly. "And it may be that I understand my daughter, who is of my own race, better than you who are not of her race."
"It may be. But I am not certain that it is so. Sir, since you have twice alluded to that question of race, you must not be surprised or displeased if I remind you that she is as much of my race as of your own. Half Spanish she is, but half of English blood."
Don Joaquinwasdispleased, but all the same, he did feel that there might be something in Gore's argument. He had always thought of Mariquita as Spanish like himself; but he had never been unconscious that she was unlike himself—it might possibly be by reason of her half-English descent.
"The lady," Gore went on, "whom you yourself are marrying, would perhaps understand me better than you appear to do."
This reference to Sarella did not greatly conciliate her betrothed. He did not wish her to be occupied in understanding any young man. All the same, he was slightly flattered at Gore's having, apparently, a confidence in her judgment. Moreover, he knew that it was so late that this discussion could not be protracted much longer, and he was not willing to say anything like an admission that he had receded (which he had not) from his own opinion.
"Her judgment," he said, "is good. And she has a maternal interest in Mariquita. I will tell her what you have said."
Gore went to bed smiling to himself at the idea of Sarella's maternal interest. She did not strike him as a motherly young lady.
Sarella found considerable enjoyment in the visits to Maxwell necessitated by her period of instruction. Each instruction was of reasonable length and left plenty of time for other affairs, and that time landed Don Joaquin in expenses he had been far from foreseeing. Sarella had a fund of mild obstinacy which her placidity of temper partly veiled. She intended that considerable additions to the furniture of the homestead should be made, and she didnotintend to get married without some considerable additions to her wardrobe as well. Her dresses, she assured Don Joaquin, were all too youthful. "Girl's clothes" she called them. She insisted on the necessity of now dressing as a matron. "Perhaps," she admitted with sweet ingenuousness, "I have dressed too young. One gets into a sort of groove. There was nothing to remind me that I had passed beyond the stage of school-girl frocks. But a married woman, unless she is a silly, must pull herself up, and adopt a matron's style; I would rather now dress a bit too old than too young. You don't want people to be saying you have married a flapper!"
She got her own way, and Don Joaquin, had he known anything about it, might have discovered that matronly garments were more expensive than a girl's. "A girl," Sarella informed Mariquita, "need only be smart. A matron's dress must be handsome."
To do her justice, Sarella tried to convince her lover that Mariquita also should be provided with new clothes; but he would agree only to one new "suit," as he called it, for his daughter to wear at his wedding. He had no idea of spending his own money on an extensive outfit "for another man's wife." That expense would be Gore's. Even in Sarella's case he would never have agreed to buy all she wanted had it been announced at once, but she was far too astute for any such mistake as that. It appeared that there must be some delay before their marriage, and she utilized it by spreading her gradual demands over as long a time as she could.
Some of the expense, too, Don Joaquin managed to reduce by discovering a market he had hardly thought of till now, for the furs of animals he had himself shot; some of these animals were rather uncommon, some even rare, and he became aware of their commercial value only when bargaining for their making up into coats or cloaks for Sarella. His subsequent visits to this "store" in order to dispose of similar furs against a reduction in its charges for Sarella's clothing, he studiously concealed from her, but Sarella knew all about it.
"Why," she said to herself, really admiring his sharpness, "the old boy is making aprofiton the bargain. He's getting more for his furs than he's spending."
She was careful not to let him guess that she knew this; but she promised herself to "take it out in furniture." And she kept her promise. It was Sarella's principle that a person who did not keep promises made to herself would never keep those made to other people.
"You really must," she told him, "have some of those furs made into a handsome winter jacket for Mariquita. They cost you nothing, and she must have a winter jacket. The one she has was got at the Convent—and a present, too, I believe. It was handsome once—and that shows how economicalgoodclothes are; they last so—"
(Don Joaquin thought, "especially economical when they are presents.")
"—But Mariquita has grown out of it. She is so tall. A new one made of cloth from the store would cost more than one for me, because she is so tall. But those furs cost you nothing."
She knew he would not say, "No, but I can sell them."
"Besides," she added, "if you offered them some more furs at the store they might take something off the charge of making and lining. It is often done. I'll ask them about it if you like."
Don Joaquin did not at all desire her to do that.
"No necessity," he said hastily; "Mariquita shall have the jacket. I will take the furs and give the order myself."
"Only be sure to insist that the lining is silk. They have some silvery gray silk that would just go with those furs. And Mariquita wouldpaygood dressing. Her style wants it. She's solid, you know."
Mariquita did get the jacket. But it was not of the fur Sarella had meant—her father knew by that time the value of that sort of fur. And Sarella knew that she had made it quite clear which sort she had asked him to supply. She was amused by his craftiness, and though a little ashamed of him, she was readier to forgive his stinginess than if it had been illustrated in a garment for herself. After all, it was perhaps as well that Mariquita's should not be so valuable as her own.
"And married women," she reminded herself, "do have to dress handsomer than girls. And Mariquita will never know the difference."
"Isuggested," she told her cousin, "the same gray fur as mine. But I daresay a brown fur will suit your coloring better, and it'syounger. Anything gray (in the fur line) can be worn with mourning, and nothing's so elderly as mourning."
It was the first present her father had ever given Mariquita, and she thanked him with a warmth of gratefulness that ought to have made him ashamed. But Don Joaquin was not subject to the unpleasant consciousness of shame. On the contrary, he thought with less complacence of Mariquita's thanks than of the fact that he had given her a necessary winter garment at a profit—for he had taken the other furs to the store and received for them a substantial cash payment over and above the clearing of the charges for making up and lining the commoner skins of which the winter jacket was made.
"I wonder," thought Sarella, "what that lining is? It looks silky, but I'm sure it isn't silk. I daresay it's warmer. And after all, Gore can get it changed for silk when it's worn out; the fur will outlast two linings at least. It's not so delicate as mine. I'm afraid mine'llflatten. I must look to that."
Meanwhile the instructions did proceed, and Sarella did not mind them much. Perhaps she was not always attending very laboriously—she had a good deal to think of; but she listened with all due docility, and with quite reasonable, if not absorbed, interest; and by carefully abstaining from asking questions, did not often betray any misunderstanding of the nun's explanations, for it was by one of the nuns that all but the preliminary instructions were given. Sarella rather liked her, deciding that she was "a good sort," and, though neither young nor extremely attractive, she was "as kind as kind," and so intensely full of her subject that Sarella could not help gathering a higher appreciation of its importance. In Sarella the earnest expounder of Catholic doctrine and practice had no bigotry and not much prejudice to work against; only a thick crust of ignorance, and perhaps a thicker layer of natural indifference. The little she had heard about the Catholic Church was from Puritan neighbors in a very small town of a remote corner of New England, and if it had made any particular impression, must have been found unfavorable; but Sarella had been too little interested in religion to adopt its rancors, her whole disposition, easy, self-indulgent and material, being opposed to rancor as to all rough, sharp, and uncomfortable things.
Perhaps the nun was hardly likely to overcome the indifference, and perhaps she knew it. But she prayed for Sarella much oftener than she talked to her, and had much more confidence in what Our Lord Himself might do for her than in anything that she could.
"After all," she would urge, "it is more Your own business than mine. I did not make her, nor die for her. Master, do Your own work that I cannot."
Besides, she, who had no belief in chance, would cheer herself by remembering that He had so ordered His patient providence as to bring the girl to the gate of the Church, by such ways as she was so far capable of. He had begun the work; He would not half do it. He would make it, the nun trusted, a double work. For in, half-obstinately, insisting that Sarella must become a Catholic before he married her, the old Spaniard, half-heathen by lifelong habit, had begun to awake to some sort at least of Catholic feeling, some beginning of Catholic practice, for now he was occasionally hearing Mass, and that first lethargic movement of a better spirit in him might, with God's blessing, would, lead to something more genuinely spiritual.
The nun attributed those beginnings to the prayers of the old half-breed's daughter. As yet she knew her but little, but already, by thediscretio spiritum, which is, after all, perhaps only another name for the clear instinct in things of grace earned by those who live by grace, the elderly nun, plain and simple, recognized in Mariquita one of a rare, unfettered spirituality.
Sarella had not, at all events consciously, to herself, told her instructress much about her young cousin.
"Oh, Mariquita!" she had said, not ill-naturedly, "she lives up in the moon."
("Higher up than that, I expect," thought Sister Aquinas, gathering the impression that Mariquita was not held of much account in the family.)
"But she is not an idler?" said the nun.
"Oh, not a bit," Sarella agreed with perfectly ungrudging honesty. "An idler! No; she works a lot harder than she ought; harder than she would if I had the arranging of things. Not quite so hard as she used, though, for I have made her father get some help, and he will have to get more if Mariquita leaves us."
Perceiving that the nun did not smile, but retreated into what Sarella called her "inside expression," that acute young woman guessed that she might have conveyed the idea that her future stepdaughter was to be sent away on her father's marriage.
"There's always," she explained carelessly, "the chance of her marrying. She is handsome in her own way, and I don't think she need remain long unmarried if she chose to marry. Not thatsheever thinks of it."
("I expect not," thought Sister Aquinas.)
This was about as near to gossip as they ever got. Sarella, indeed, would have liked the nun better if she had been "more chatty." I don't know that Sister Aquinas really disliked chat so long as it wasn't gossip, but the truth was, she did not find the time allowed for each instruction at all superfluously long, and did not wish to let it slip away in mere talk.
It was only occasionally that Mariquita accompanied Sarella when the latter went to the convent for instruction. On one of those occasions the Loretto Convent near Denver was mentioned, and Sister Aquinas said:
"I had a niece there a few years ago—Eleanor Hurst. I wonder if you know her?"
"Oh, yes! Quite well." Mariquita answered, with the sort of shining interest that always made her look suddenly younger. "A friend of ours brought me news, lately, that she has become a Carmelite."
"What is a Carmelite?" Sarella asked.
"A nun of one of the great Contemplative Orders," Sister Aquinas explained, turning politely to Sarella. "It is a much rarer vocation than that of active nuns, like ourselves. Carmelites do not teach school, or have orphanages, or homes for broken old men or women, nor nurse the sick, either in their homes or in hospital."
"Sounds pretty useless," Sarella remarked carelessly; "what do they do anyway?"
"They are not at all useless," the nun answered, smiling good-humoredly. "Married women are not useless, though they do not do any of those things either."
"Of course not. But theyaremarried. They make their husbands comfortable—"
The nun could not help taking her own turn of interrupting, and said with a little laugh:
"Not quite always, perhaps."
"The good ones do."
"Perhaps not invariably. Some even pious women are not remarkable for making their husbands comfortable."
Sarella laughed, and the elderly nun went on.
"Of course, it is the vocation of married women to do as you say. And I hope most do it, that and setting the example of happy Christian homes. I do not really mean to judge of the vocation by those who fail to fulfill it. It is God's vocation for the vast majority of His daughters. But not for all."
"There aren't husbands enough for all of us," Sarella, who was "practical" and slightly statistical, remarked, with the complacence of one for whom a husband had been forthcoming.
"Exactly," agreed the elderly nun, laughing cheerfully, "so it's a good thing, you see, that there are other vocations; ours, for instance."
"Oh," Sarella protested with hasty politeness, "no one could think people like you useless. You do so much good."
"So do the Carmelites. Only their way of it is not quite the same. Would you say that Shakespeare was useless, or Dante?"
To tell truth, Sarella had never in her life said anything about either, or thought anything. Nevertheless, she was aware that they were considered important.
"They did not," the nun said eagerly, "teach schools, or nurse the sick, or do any of those things for the sake of which some people kindly forgive us for being nuns—not all people, unfortunately. Yet they are recognized as not having been useless. They are not useless now, long after they are dead. Mankind admits its debt to them. Theyserved, and they serve still. Not with physical service, like nurses, or doctors, or cooks, or house-servants. But they contributed to thequalityof the human race. So have many great men and women who never wrote a line—Joan of Arc, for instance. The contribution of those illustrious servants was eminent and famous, but many who have never been famous, who never have been known, have contributed in a different degree or fashion to the quality of mankind: innumerable priests, unknown perhaps outside their parishes; innumerable nuns, innumerable wives and mothers; and a Carmelite nun so contributes, eminently, immeasurably except by God, though invisibly, and inaudibly. Not only by her prayers, I mean her prayers of intercession, though again it is only God who can measure what she does by them. But just by being what she is, vast, unknown numbers of people are brought into the Catholic Church not only by her prayers but by her life. Some read themselves into the true faith, intoanyfaith; they are very few in comparison of those who come to believe. Some are preached into the Church—a few only, again, compared with the number of those who do come to her. What brings most of those who are brought? I believe it is a certain quality that they have become aware of in the Catholic Church, that brings the immense majority. The young man in the factory, or in the army, in a ship, or on a ranch—anywhere—falls into companionship with a Catholic, or with a group of Catholics; and in him, or them, he gradually perceives thisqualitywhich he has never perceived elsewhere. It may be that the Catholics he has come to know are not perfect at all. The quality is not all of their own earning; it is partly an inheritance: some of it from their mothers, some from their sisters, some from their friends; ever so much of it from the saints, who contributed it to the air of the Church that Catholics breathe. The Contemplatives are contributing it every day, and all day long. Each, in her case, behind her grille, is forever giving something immeasurable, except by God, to the transcendent quality of the Catholic Church. This may be, and mostly is, unsuspected by almost all her fellow-creatures; but not unfelt by quite all. A Carmelite's convent is mostly in a great city; countless human beings pass its walls. They cannothelp, seeing them, saying to their own hearts, 'In there, human creatures, like me, are living unlike me. They have given upeverything—and for no possible rewardhere. Ambition cannot account forany part of it even. They cannot become anything great even in their Church, nor famous; they will die as little known or regarded as they live. They can win no popularity. They obtain no applause. They are called useless for their pains. They are scolded for doing what they do, though they would not be scolded if they were mere old-maids who pampered and indulged only themselves. The wicked women of this city are less decried than they. They are abused, and they have to be content to be abused, remembering that their Master said they must be content to fare no better than Himself. It is something above this world, that can only be accounted for by another world, and such a belief in it as is not proved by those who may try to grab two worlds, this one with their right hands, the next with their left. The life almost all of us declare impossible here on earth, they are living.' Such thoughts as these, broken thoughts, hit full in the face numbers of passers-by every day, and how many days are there not in a year—in a Carmelite's own lifetime. They are witnesses to Jesus Christ, who cannot be explained away. A chaplain told me that nothing pleased his soldiers so much as to get him in the midst of a group of them and say, 'Tell us about the nuns, Father. Tell us about the Carmelites and the Poor Clares—'"
"I knew a girl called Clare," Sarella commented brightly; "she was as poor as a church mouse, but she married a widower with no children and ahugefortune. I beg your pardon—but the name reminded me of her."
Sister Aquinas laughed gently.
"Well, she was a useful friend to you!"
"Not at all. She never did a hand's turn for anyone. I don't know what she would have done if shehadn'tmarried a rich man, she was so helpless. But you were saying?"
"Only, that his soldiers loved to hear the chaplain tell them about the Contemplative nuns. Nothing interested them more. I am sure it was not thrown away on them. It was like showing them a high and lovely place. I should think no one can look at a splendid white mountain and not want to be climbing. That was all."
Would Sarella ever want to climb? Sister Aquinas did not know, nor do I know.
Her eagerness had been, perhaps, partly spurred by other criticism than Sarella's; Sarella was not the only one who had told Nelly Hurst's aunt that it was a pity the girl had "decided on one of the useless Orders."
That every phase of life approved by the Catholic Church, as the Contemplative Orders are, must be useful, Sister Aquinas knew well. And it wounded her to hear her niece's high choice belittled. She could not help knowing that this belittling was simply a naive confession of materialism, and an equally naive expression of human selfishness. We approve the vocation of nuns whose work is for our own bodies; we cannot easily see the splendor ofdirectservice of God Himself who has no material needs of His own. That God's most usual course of Providence calls us to serve Him by serving our fellows, we see clearly enough, because it suits us to see it; but we are too purblind to perceive that even that Service need not in every case be material service, and it scandalizes us to remember that God chooses in some instance to be serveddirectly, not by the service of any creature; because the instances are less common, we are shocked when asked to admit that they exist. If Christ were still visibly on earth, millions would be delighted to feed Him, but it would annoy almost all of us to see even a few serving Him by sitting idle at His feet listening. Hardly any of us but think Martha was doing more that afternoon at Bethany than her sister, and it troubles us that Jesus Christ thought differently. It was so easy to sit still and listen—that is why the huge majority of us find it impossible, and are angry that here and there a Contemplative nun wants to do it.
Of liberty we prattle in every language; and most loudly do they scream of it who are most angry that God takes leave to exist, and that many of His creatures still refuse to deny His existence; that many admit His right to command, and their own obligation to obey. These liberty-brawlers would be the first to concede to every woman the "inalienable right" to lead a corrupt life, destructive of society, and the last to allow to a handful of women out of the world's population the right to live a life of spotless whiteness at the immediate feet of the Master they love.
Was Sister Aquinas so carried away as to be forgetful that Sarella was not the only auditor? Mariquita had listened too.
During these weeks of Sarella's instruction she achieved something which to her seemed a greater triumph than her succession of cumulative triumphs in the matters of trousseau and of furniture. She persuaded Don Joaquin to buy a motor-car!
She would not have succeeded in this attempt but for certain circumstances which in reality robbed her success of some of its triumph. In the first place, the machine was not a new one; in the second, Don Joaquin took it instead of a debt which he did not think likely to be paid. Then also he had arrived at the conclusion that so many long rides as Sarella's frequent journeys to Maxwell involved, were likely to prove costly. They took a good deal out of the horses, even without accidents occurring, and an accident had nearly occurred which would have very largely reduced the value of one of the best of his horses—the one, as it happened, best fitted for carrying a lady. Sarella all but let the horse down on a piece of ragged, stony road: Don Joaquin being himself at her elbow and watchful, had just succeeded in averting the accident; but lover as he was, he was able to see that Sarella would never be a horse-woman. She disliked riding, and he was not such a tyrant as to insist on her doing a thing she never would do well, and had no pleasure in doing. On the whole, he made up his mind that it would be more economical to take this second-hand car in settlement of a bad debt than continue running frequent risks of injury to his horses.
The acquisition of the car made it possible to shorten the period of these journeys to Maxwell; it did not require a night's rest, and the trip itself was much more rapidly accomplished.
The period of Sarella's instruction was not one of idleness on Gore's part, in reference to Mariquita. It seemed to him that he really was making some advance. He saw much more of her than used to be the case. She was now accustomed to chance meetings with him, or what she took for chance meetings, and did not make hasty escape from them, or treat him during them with reserve. They were, in fact, friends and almost confidential friends; but if Gore had continued as wise as he had been when discussing the situation with her father, he would have been able to see that it did not amount to more than that; that they were friends indeed because Mariquita was wholly free from any suspicion that more than that could come of it. She had simply come to a settled opinion that he was nice, a kind man, immensely pleasanter as a companion than any man she had known before, a trustworthy friend who could tell her of much whereof she had been ignorant. She began in a fashion to know "his people," too; and he saw with extreme pleasure that she was interested in them. That was natural enough. She knew almost nobody; as a grown-up woman, had really known none of her own sex till Sarella came; it would have been strange if she had not heard with interest about women whose portraits were so affectionately drawn for her, who, she could easily discern, were pleasant and refined, cheerful, bright, amusing, and kind, too; cordial, friendly people.
All the same, Gore's talk of his family did connote a great advance in intimacy with Mariquita. He seemed to assume that she might know them herself, and she gathered the notion that when he had bought a range, some of them would come out and live with him, so that she said nothing to contradict a possibility that he had after all only implied. Gore, meanwhile, with no suspicion of her idea that his sisters might come out to visit him, and noting with great satisfaction that she never contradicted his hints and hopes that they might all meet, attached more importance to it than he ought. Perhaps he built more hope on this than on any one thing besides. He was fully aware that in all their intercourse there was no breath of flirtation. But he could not picture Mariquita flirting, and did not want to picture it. Meanwhile their intercourse was daily growing to an intimacy, or he took it for such. He did not sufficiently weigh the fact that of herself she said little. She was most ready to be interested in all he told her of himself, his previous life, his friends; but of her own real life, which was inward and apart from the few events of her experience, she did not speak. This did not strike him as reserve, for those who show a warm, friendly interest in others do not seem reserved.
Gore never startled her by gallantry or compliments; his sympathy and admiration were too respectful for compliment, and a certain instinct warned him that gallantry would have perplexed and disconcerted her.
None the less, he believed that he was making progress, and the course of it was full of beautiful and happy moments. So things went on, with, as Gore thought, sure though not rapid pace. He was too much in earnest to risk haste, and also too happy in the present to make blundering clutches at the future. Then with brutal suddenness Don Joaquin intervened.
He met his daughter and Gore returning to the homestead, Mariquita's face bright with friendly interest in all that Gore had been telling her, and the young man's certainly not less happy. Don Joaquin was out of temper; Sarella and he had had an economic difference and he had been aware that she had deceived him.
He barely returned Gore's and Mariquita's greeting, and his brow was black. It was not till some time later that he and Gore found themselves alone together. Then he said ill-humoredly:
"You and Mariquita were riding this afternoon—a good while, I think."
"It did not seem long tome, as you can understand," Gore replied smiling, and anxious to ignore the old fellow's bad temper.
"Perhaps it does not seem long to you since you began to speak of marrying my daughter."
"I did not begin to speak of it. I should have preferred to hold my tongue till I could feel I had some right to speak of it. It was you, sir, who began."
"And that was a long time ago. Have you yet made my daughter understand you?"
"I cannot be sure yet."
"But I must be sure. To-morrow I shall see that she understands."
Gore was aghast.
"I earnestly beg you to abstain from doing that," he begged, too anxious to prevent Don Joaquin's interference to risk precipitating it by showing the anger he felt.
"Perhaps you no longer wish to marry her. If so, it would be advisable to reduce your intercourse to common civilities—"
"Sir," Gore interrupted, "I cannot allow you to go on putting any case founded on such an assumption as that of my no longer wishing to marry your daughter. I wish it more every day ..."
The young man had a right to be angry, and he was angry, and perhaps was not unwilling to show it. But it was necessary that he should for every reason be moderate in letting his resentment appear. To have a loud quarrel with a prospective father-in-law is seldom a measure likely to help the suitor's wishes.
He in his turn was interrupted.
"Then," said Don Joaquin, "it is time you told her so."
"I do not think so. I think it'snottime, and that to tell her so now would greatly injure my chance of success."
"I will answer for your success. I shall myself speak to her. I shall tell her that you wish to marry her, and that I have, some time ago, given my full consent."
Gore was well aware that Don Joaquin could not "answer for his success." It was horrible to him to think of Mariquita being bullied, and he was sure that her father intended to bully her. Anything would be better than that. He was intensely earnest in his wish to succeed; it was that earnestness that made him willing to be patient; but he was, if possible, even more intensely determined that the poor girl should not be tormented and dragooned by her tyrannical father. That, he would risk a great deal to prevent, as far as his own power went.
"I most earnestly beg you not to do that," he said in a very low voice.
"But I intend to do it. If you choose to say that you do not, after all, wish to marry her, then I will merely suggest that you should leave us."
"I have just told you the exact contrary—"
"Then, I shall tell Mariquita so to-morrow, stating that your proposal meets with my full consent, and that in view of her prolonged intimacy with you, her consent is taken by me for granted. I do take it for granted."
"I wish I could. But I cannot. Sir, I still entreat you to abandon this intention of yours."
"Only on condition that you make the proposal yourself without any further delay."
From this decision the obstinate old father would not recede. The discussion continued for some time, but he seemed to grow only more fixed in his intention, and certainly he became more acerbated in temper. Gore was sure that if he were allowed to take up the matter with his daughter, it would be with even more harshly dictatorial tyranny than had seemed probable at first.
Finally Gore promised that he would himself propose to Mariquita in form on the morrow, Don Joaquin being with difficulty induced to undertake on his side that he would not "prepare" her for what was coming. He gave this promise quite as reluctantly as Gore gave his. The younger man dreaded the bad effects of precipitancy; the elder, who had plenty of self-conceit behind his dry dignity, relinquished very unwillingly the advantages he counted upon from his diplomacy, and the weight of his authority being known beforehand to be on the suitor's side. If Gore were really so uncertain of success, it would be a feather in the paternal cap to have insured that success by his solemn indications of approval. But he saw that without his promise of absolute abstention from interference, Gore would not agree to make his proposal, so Don Joaquin ungraciously yielded the point perhaps chiefly because important business called him away from the morrow's dawn till late at night.
After breakfast next morning Sarella, not quite accidentally, found herself alone with Gore.
"You gentlemen," she said, "did go to bed sometime, I suppose. But I thought you neverweregoing to stop your talk—and to tell you the truth, I wished my bedroom was farther away, or had a thicker wall.Igo to bed to sleep. You were at it two hours and twenty minutes."
Gore duly apologized for the postponement of her sleep, and wonderedhowthin the wooden partition might be between her room and that in which the long discussion had taken place.
"These partitions of thin boarding are wretched," she informed him, "especially as they are only stained. If they were even papered it would prevent the tobacco-smoke coming through the cracks where the boards have shrunk." Gore could not help smiling.
"I think," he said, "you want to let me know that our talk was not quite inaudible."
"No, it wasn't. Not quite. I'll tell you how much was audible. That you were talking about Mariquita, and that you were arguing, and I think you were both angry. I am surehewas."
"So was I; though not so loud, I hope."
"Look here, Mr. Gore. You weren't loud at all. But I knew you were angry. And so you ought to have been. Why on earth can't he keep his fingers out of the pot? You and Mariquita didn't interfere in his love affair, and he'll do no good interfering in yours."
Gore laughed.
"So you heard it all!" he said.
"No. If you had talked as loud as he did I should. But you didn't. It was easy to hear him say that to-morrow he would go and order Mariquita to marry you. If that had been the end of it, I just believe I should have dressed myself and come in to tell him not to be silly. But it wasn't the end. Was it?"
"No. To stopthatplan I promised I would propose to Mariquita to-day—only he was to say nothing about it to her first."
"Well, then, I don't know as he has done any harm. You might do worse."
"I might do better."
"What better?"
"Wait a bit."
"I'm not so sure. I don't know that anyharmwould come of waiting a bit, and I daresay it's all very pleasant meanwhile. But you can go on with your love-making after you're engaged just as well as before."
"Ah! If wewereengaged!"
"Pfush!" quoth Sarella, inventing a word which stood her in stead of "Pshaw."
Gore had to laugh again, and no doubt her good-natured certainty encouraged him—albeit he did not believe she knew Mariquita.
"What o'clock shall you propose?" she inquired coolly.
Of course he could not tell her.
"I guess," she said, "it will be between two and three. Dinner at twelve. Digestion and preliminaries, 12:45 to 1:45. Proposal 2:45 say. You will be engaged by 2:50."
As before, Gore liked the encouragement though very largely discounting its worth.
"On the whole," Sarella observed, "I daresay my old man has done good—as he has made himself scarce. If he hadn't threatened to put his own foot in it, you might have gone on staring up at Mariquita in the stars till she was forty, and then it might have struck you that you could get on fine without her."
Sarella evidently thought that nothing was to be done before the time she had indicated; during the morning she was in evidence as usual, but immediately after dinner she retreated to her studies, and was seen no more for a long time.
Gore boldly announced his intention to be idle and told Mariquita she must be idle too, begging her to ride with him. To himself it seemed as if everyone about the place must see that something was in the wind; but the truth was that everyone had been so long expecting something definite to happen without hearing of it, that some of them had decided that Gore and Mariquita had fixed up their engagement already at some unsuspected moment, and the rest had almost ceased to expect to hear anything.
As to Mariquita, she was clearly unsuspicious that this afternoon was to have any special significance for her. Always cheerful and unembarrassed, she was exactly her usual self, untroubled by the faintest presentiment of fateful events. Her ready agreement to Gore's proposal that they should ride together was, he knew well, of no real good omen. It made him have a guilty feeling, as if he were getting her out under false pretences.
There was so happy a light of perfect, confiding friendliness upon her face that it seemed almost impossible to cloud it by the suggestion of anything that would be different from simple friendship. But must it be clouded by such a suggestion? "Clouding" means darkening; was it really impossible for that light, so trusting and so contented, of unquestioning friendship, to be changed without being rendered less bright? Must Gore assume her to be specially incapable of an affection deeper than even friendship? No; of anything good she was capable; no depths of love could be beyond her, and he was sure that her nature was one of deep affectionateness, left unclaimed till now. The real loneliness of her life, he told himself, had lain in this very depth of unclaimed lovingness. And he told himself, too, not untruly, that she had been less lonely of late.
Gore might, he felt, hope to awake all that dormant treasure of affection—if he had time! But he had no longer time. He did truly, though not altogether, shrink from the task he had set himself to-day. He had a genuine reluctance to risk spoiling that happy content of hers; yet he could not say it was worse than a risk. There was the counter possibility of that happy content changing into something lovelier.
That she was not incapable of love he told himself with full assurance, and he was half-disposed to believe that she was one who would never love till asked for her love.
Sarella might be nearer right than he had been. She was of much coarser fibre than Mariquita, and perhaps he had made too much of that, for she was a woman at all events, and shrewd, watchful and a looker-on with the proverbial advantages (maybe) over the actors themselves. Sarella knew how Mariquita spoke of him, though he did not believe that between the two cousins there had been confidences about himself; not real confidences, though Sarella was just the girl to "chaff" Mariquita about himself, and would know how her chaff had been taken. At all events, Don Joaquin must be forestalled; his blundering interference must be prevented, and it could only be prevented by Gore keeping his word and speaking himself.
He had kept his word, and had spoken. They had been out together a long time when the opportunity came; they had dismounted, and the horses were resting. He and she were sitting in the shade of a small group of trees, to two of which the horses were tied. Their talk had turned naturally, and with scarcely any purposeful guidance of his, in a direction that helped him. And Mariquita talked with frank unreserve; she felt at home with him now, and her natural silence had long before now been melted by his sincerity; her silence of habit waschieflyhabit, due not to distrust nor a guarded prudence, but to the much simpler fact that till his arrival, she had never since her home-coming been called upon to speak in any real sense by anyone who cared to hear her, or who had an interest in what she might have to say.
His proposal did not come with the least abruptness, but it was clear and unmistakeable when it came, and she understood—Mariquita could understand a plain meaning as well as anyone. She did not interrupt, nor avert her gaze. Indeed, she turned her eyes, which had been looking far away across the lovely, empty prairie to the horizon, to him as he spoke, and her hands ceased their idle pulling at the grass beside her. In her eyes, as she listened, there was a singular shining, and presently they held a glistening like the dew in early morning flowers.
Gore had not moved any nearer to her, nor did he as he ceased. One hand of hers she moved nearer to him, now, though not so as to touch him.
"That is what you want?" she said. "Is that what you have been wanting all the time?"
Her voice was rather low, but most clear, and it had no reproach.
"Yes. What can you say to me?"
"I can only say how grateful it makes me."
Her words almost astonished him. Though he might have known that she must say only exactly what was in her mind. They conveyed in themselves no refusal, but he knew at once there was no hope for him in them.
"Grateful!" He exclaimed. "As if I could help it!"
"And as if I could help being grateful. It is so great a thing! For you to wish that. There could be nothing greater. I can never forget it. You must never think that I could forget it ... I—you know, Mr. Gore, that I am not like most girls, being so very ignorant. I have never read a novel. Even the nuns told me that some of them are beautiful and not bad at all, but the contrary. Only, I have never read any. I know they are full of this matter—love and marriage. They are great things, and concern nearly all the men and women in the world, but not quite all. I do not think I ever said to myself, 'They don't concernyou.' I do not think I ever thought about it, but if I had, I believe I should have known that that matter would never concern me. Yet I do not want you to misunderstand—Oh, if I could make you understand, please! I know that it is a great thing, love and marriage, God's way for most men and women. And I think it a wonderful, great thing that a man should wish that for himself and me; should think that with me he could be happier than in any other way. Of course, I never thought anyone would feel that. It is a thing to thank you for, and always I shall thank you...."
"Is it impossible?"
She paused an infinitesimal moment and said:
"Just that. Impossible."
"Would it be fair to ask why 'impossible'?"
"Not unfair at all. But perhaps I cannot answer. I will try to answer. When you told me what you wanted it pleased me because you wanted it, and it hurt me because I (who had never thought about it before) knew at once that it was not possible to do what you wanted, and I would so much rather be able to please you."
"You will never be able to do anything else but please me. Your refusing cannot change your being yourself."
Gore could not worry her with demands for reasons. He knew there was no one else. He knew she was not incapable of loving—for he knew, better than ever, that she loved greatly and deeply all whom she knew. Nay, he knew that she lovedhim, among them, but more than any of them. And yet he saw that she was simply right. What he had asked was "impossible, just that." Better than himself she would love no one, and in the fashion of a wife she would love no one, ever.
Yet, he asked her a question, not to harry her but because of her father. "Perhaps you have resolved never to marry," he said.
"I never thought of it. But, as soon as I knew what you were saying, I knew I should never marry anyone. It was not a resolution. It was just a certainty. Alas! our resolutions are not certainties."
"But," Gore said gently, feeling it necessary to prepare her, "your father may wish you to marry."
She paused, dubiously, and her brown skin reddened a little.
"You think so? Yes, he may," she answered in a troubled voice; for she feared her father, more even than she was conscious of.
"I think he does," Gore said, not watching the poor girl's troubled face.
"He wants me to marry you?" she inquired anxiously.
"I am afraid so; ever since he made up his mind. I do not think he liked the idea of letting you marry me till long after he saw what I hoped for. You see, I began to hope for it from the very first—from the day when we first met, by the river. He did not like me then; he did not know whether to approve of me or not. And at first he was inclined to approve all the less because he saw I wanted to win you for myself. I don't know that he likes me much even now; but he approves, and he approves of my plan. You know that once he has made up his mind to approve a plan, he likes it more and more. He gets determined and obstinate about it."
"Yes. He will be angry."
"I am afraid so. But—it is because he thinks it a father's duty to arrange for his daughter's future, and this plan suited him."
"Oh, yes! I know he is a good man. He will feel he is right in being angry."
"But I don't. He will be wrong. Though he is your father, he has not the right to try and force you to do what you say is impossible."
"Yes," she said gently, "it is impossible. But I shall not be able to make him see that."
"I see it. And it concerns me more than it concerns him."
"You are more kind than anyone I ever heard of," she told him. "I never dared to hope you would come to see that—that it is impossible."
"Can you tell him why?"
"Perhaps I do not quite understand you."
"It seems a long time ago, now, to me since I asked you if you could come to love me and be my wife. Everything seems changed and different. I wonder if I could guess why you knew instantly that it was impossible. It might help you with your father."
Mariquita listened, and gave no prohibition.
"I think," he said, "you knew it was impossible, because my words taught you, if you did not know already, that you could be no man's wife—"
"Oh, yes! That is true."
"But perhaps they taught you also something else, which you may not have known before—that you could belong only to God."
"I have known that always," she answered simply.
When Don Joaquin returned, he was in an unusually bad temper, and it was well that Mariquita had gone to bed. Gore was sitting up, and, though it was long past Sarella's usual hour, she had insisted on sitting up also. This was good-natured of her, for there was no pleasure to be anticipated from the interview with Don Joaquin, and she disliked any derangement of her habits. Gore had begged her to retire at her ordinary hour, but she had flatly refused.
"I can do more with him than you can," she declared, quite truly, "though no one will be able to stop his being as savage as a bear. I'm sorry for Mariquita; she'll have a bad time to-morrow, and it won't end with to-morrow."
Meanwhile she took the trouble to have ready a good supper for Don Joaquin, and made rather a special toilette in which to help him to it. Sarella was not in the least afraid of him, and had no great dread of a row which concerned someone else. Don Joaquin was not, however, particularly mollified by the becoming dress, nor by finding his betrothed sitting up for him, as she was sitting up with Gore.
"Where's Mariquita?" he asked, as he sat down to eat.
"In bed long ago. I hope you'll like that chicken; it's done in a special way we have, and the recipe's my patent. I haven't taught it to Mariquita."
"Why aren'tyouin bed?"
"Because I preferred waiting to see you safe at home," Sarella replied with an entrancing smile.
"Was Mr. Gore anxious too?" Don Joaquin demanded sarcastically.
"It is not a quarter of an hour later than my usual time for going to bed," Gore answered. "And I thought it better to see you; you would, I believe, haveexpectedto see me."
"Very well. You have done as you said?"
"Yes." Gore glanced at Sarella, and Don Joaquin told her that she had now better sit up no longer.
"Ithink I had," she told him; "I know all about it."
"Is it all settled?" Don Joaquin asked, looking at Gore. "Have you fixed it up?"
Gore found this abruptness and haste made his task very difficult.
He had to consider how to form his reply.
"He proposed to Mariquita," Sarella cut in, "but she refused him."
"Refused him!" Don Joaquin almost shouted.
"Unfortunately, it is so," Gore was beginning, but his host interrupted him.
"I do not choose she should refuse," he said angrily. "I will tell her so before you see her in the morning."
Gore was angry himself, and rose from his seat.
"No," he said; "I will not agree to that. She knows her own mind, and it will not change. You must not persecute her on my account."
"It is not on your account. I choose to have duty and obedience from my own daughter."
"Joaquin," said Sarella (Gore had never before heard her call him by his Christian name), "it is no use taking it that way. Mariquita is not undutiful, and you must know it. But she will not marry Mr. Gore—or anybody."
"Of course she will marry," cried the poor girl's father fiercely. "That is the duty of every girl."
Sarella slightly smiled.
"Then many girls do not do their duty," she said, in her even, unimpassioned tones.
Her elderlyfiancéwas about to burst into another explosion, but she would not let him.
"Many Catholic girls," she reminded him, "remain unmarried."
"To be nuns—that is different."
"It is my belief," she observed in a detached manner, as if indulging in a mere surmise, "that Mariquita will be a nun."
"Mariquita! Has she said so?" he demanded sharply.
"Not to me," Sarella replied, quite unconcernedly.
"Nor to me," Gore explained; "nevertheless, I believe it will be so."
"That depends onme," the girl's father asserted with an unpleasant mixture of annoyance and obstinacy. "I intend her to marry."
"Only a Protestant," said Sarella, with a shrewd understanding of Don Joaquin that surprised Gore, "would marry her if she believes she has a vocation to be a nun. I should think a Catholic man would be ashamed to do it. He would expect a judgment on himself and his children."
Don Joaquin was as angry as ever, as savage as ever, but he was startled. Both his companions could see this. Gore was astonished at Sarella's speech, and at her acumen. He had wished to have this interview with Mariquita's father to himself, but already saw that Sarella knew how to conduct it better than he did. She had clearly been quite willing that "the old man" (as he disrespectfully called him in his own mind) should fly out and give way to his fiery temper at once; the more of it went off now, the less would remain for poor Mariquita to endure.
"If I were a Catholic man," Sarella continued cooly, "I should think itprofaneto make a girl marry me who had given herself to be a nun. I expect the Lord would punish it." She paused meditatively, and then added, "and all who joined in pushing her to it. I knowIwouldn't join. I think folks have enough of their own to answer for, without bringing judgments down on their heads for things like that. It won't get me to heaven to help in interfering between Mariquita and her way of getting there."
All the while she spoke, Sarella seemed to be admiring, with her head turned on one side, the prettiness of her left wrist on which was a gold bangle, with a crystal heart dangling from it. Don Joaquin had given her the bangle, and himself admired the heart chiefly because it was crystal and not of diamonds.
"Isn't it pretty?" she said, looking suddenly up and catching his eye watching her.
"I thought you hadn't cared much for it," he answered, greatly pleased. He had always knownshewould have preferred a smaller heart if crusted with diamonds.
Gore longed to laugh. She astonished and puzzled him. Her cleverness was a revelation to him, and her good-nature, her subtlety, and her earnestness—for he knew she had been in earnest in what she said about not daring to interfere with other people's ways of getting to heaven.
"That old man who instructs her," he thought, "must have taught her a lot."
Of course, on his own account, he was no more afraid of Don Joaquin than she was. But he had been terribly afraid of the hard old man on Mariquita's, and he was deeply grateful to Sarella.
"Sir," he said, "what she has said to you I do feel myself. I am a Catholic—and the dearest of my sisters is a nun. I should have hated and despised any man who had tried to spoil her life by snatching it to himself against her will. He would have to be a wicked fellow, and brutal, and impious. God's curse would lie on him. So it would on me if I did that hideous thing, though God knows to-day has brought me the great disappointment of my life. Life can never be for me what I have been hoping it might be. Never."
Sarella, listening, and knowing that the two men were looking at each other, smiled at her bangle, and softly shook the dangling heart to make the crystal give as diamond-like a glitter as possible. Gore's life, she thought, would come all right. She had done her best valorously for Mariquita; women, in her theory, behooved to do their best for each other against masculine tyrrany ("bossishness," she called it), but all the time she was half-savage, herself, with the girl for not being willing to be happy in so obviously comfortable a way as offered. It seemed to her "wasteful" that so pretty a girl should go and be a nun; if she had been "homely" like Sister Aquinas it would have been different. But Sarella had learned from Sister Aquinas that these matters were above her, and was quite content to accept them without understanding them.
"Ever since I came here," Gore was saying, "I have lived in a dream of what life would be—if I could join hers with mine. It was only a dream, and I had to awake."
Don Joaquin did not understand his mind, but he was able now to see that the young man suffered, and had received a blow that, somehow,wouldchange his life, and turn its course aside.
"Anything," Gore said, in a very low, almost thankful tone, "is better than it would have been if I had changed my dream for a nightmare; it would have been that, if I had to think of myself as trying to pull her down, from her level to mine, of her as having been brought down. I meant to do her all possible good, all my life long. How can I wish to have done her the greatest harm? As it would have been if, out of fear or over-persuasion, she had been brought to call herself my wife who could be no man's wife."
("Howhe loves her!" thought Sarella.)
("I doubt it has wrecked him a bit," thought Don Joaquin.)