CHAPTER XVI.
They returned to San Salvador the next day. The sun had set when they reached the town, and the streets were full. Elena and Dylar dismounted at the college; but Dylar insisted that Tacita should ride to the Arcade, and he walked there by her side. She made her little progress with a blushing modesty, ashamed of being the only person in town who was not on foot.
At the door of the Arcade Dylar took leave.
“I am sure that you will not go to the assembly this evening,” he said, “and I shall not go. Rest yourself well, and to-morrow I will take you to hear one of our story-tellers. To-night I—I want to remember!”
He murmured the words lowly as he lifted her from the saddle, and she answered them with a little half sigh. She also wanted to remember.
Supper was over; and she and Elena had theirs alone in the dining-room, talking quietly over their journey.
“You are happy, child?” Elena asked.
“I never dreamed of being so happy!” Tacita answered. And they looked into each other’s eyes, and understood.
Going to the salon, they found Iona waiting there.
“I suppose that you are not going to the assembly to-night,” she said. “But I hope that you are not too tired to tell me how you like the Olives.”
“The little glimpse I was allowed was charming. I never saw such verdure. The foliage, the fruit, were in billows, in drifts, in heaps. And how I longed to go to one of those great white houses, and sit on the roof under the palm-shadows. I said to the prince, ‘Why have we no palms in San Salvador?’ and he is going to have some. I thought of the Basilica as a proper site; but he doubted a little. It is not decided. He said, we worship Christ as King, and shrink from holding the impious insult of his martyrdom forever before his eyes. And the palm is for the martyr. But the palms will grow somewhere, and will be my special garden; and the first person who dies in the effort to serve or save San Salvador shall be carried to his grave with a waving of palm branches, and a song of hosannas, and a palm-leaf shall be entombed with him, and one cut in the marble that bears his name. For that, I would almost wish to die a martyr.”
“For that?” said Iona coldly. “The martyr, I fancy, is not thinking of the crown when he throws his life into the breach.”
“I was thinking of the people’s love,” said Tacita, faltering, her eyes cast down to hide the tears that started. She was so happy that she could not bear a check. Her heart had uncloseditself without a thought, a fear, and it shrank at the little icy breath of Iona’s answer.
“But why do not you ask me how I like your castle?” she said, recovering herself quickly.
“My castle?”
“Yes; the prince told me the story.”
“It is very true that the original owner would never have sold his castle if he had known that there was a mine of gold within a stone’s throw of it,” Iona said. “But neither did the purchaser know. All was done in honor; and the Dylar have spent time, thought, and money, in compensating my family. I do not hold that I have a shadow of a claim; yet if I should to-day ask Dylar for a house and an independent competence outside, I should have it.”
Tacita had already felt more than once that, however welcome her presence might be to every one else in San Salvador, Iona regarded it with a feeling that could scarcely be called by any warmer name than indifference. To-night her manner was more than usually stately, though she talked as much as ever, was, in fact, rather more voluble than her wont. But her talk was like an intrenchment behind which her real self was withdrawn.
Presently she began to question Tacita concerning her first journey to San Salvador, and especially that part of it made in the company of Dylar. Where had she first met him? Had she seen much of him? Were they long in Madrid together?
Surprised, Tacita answered with what frankness she could, and tried not to feel offended. She said nothing of the hymn under their balcony in Venice, nor of the picture in the Madrid gallery. The details of the rest were meagre enough. She had not realized how little there was to tell when the story was divested of those glances, tones, and movements which in her imagination filled out the gracious and perfect memory. Those few facts had been to her like the pale and scattered stars of a constellation which to the mind’s eye vivify all the blue air between. She tried to think that in the freedom and confidence of this life such questions were not intrusive, and that Iona, from her position, had a peculiar interest, and even right, in knowing all that concerned Castle Dylar and its master. But in spite of her self-exhortation a troubled thought would come. Could it be possible that Iona would set herself against her friendship with Dylar? Did she suspect anything more than an ordinary friendship between them?
Their conversation grew dry, and Iona rose to retire, with a leave-taking which could have been kinder, but not more elaborately polite. Looking out, Tacita saw her go toward the assembly-rooms, and was glad to remember that Dylar would not be there. It was twilight, and at the highest point of the college she saw his light shine out like a beacon.
Seeing that light made her forget everything else.
“Perhaps he will look for my light,” she thought, and drew her curtain quickly, and lighted a lamp. “I wonder if he will look!” Blushing, she passed slowly between the curtain and the light, then covered her face with her hands, ashamed of herself as if she had committed a sin. “I hope that he didn’t see me!” she whispered.
Soon after she extinguished her lamp, and sat down by the open window. At that hour of early evening San Salvador was as gay and crowded as it was silent and deserted in the morning. There was a sound of violins from the Star-house; and underneath her window two girls were dancing, trying to keep time to the music that was smothered by the sound of their steps. There was a murmur of talk from some of the near housetops, and the voice of a child singing itself to sleep. Leaning out the window, she could see a little farther up the road an open lighted booth where two men sat playing chess with a group of men and women watching the game. An old man wearing a scarlet fez sat close beside the players, intent on the game. The light on their faces made them look golden, and the fez was like a ruby.
“How beautiful it is! And how happy I am!” murmured Tacita.