Elena was the first to mention what both were well aware of.
“I think she is looking for someone,” she said maliciously.
Richard looked in the direction to which she was pointing, and his expression showed plainly enough that he was perturbed.
“It is theseñoritade Rojas,” he said, blushingslightly. “She’s still nothing but a kid! I know her quite well. She is like a younger sister to me, or rather, a pal.... You don’t for a moment imagine....”
But Elena was smiling ironically as though she did not believe what he was saying; and finally in a tone so cold that it hurt the youth’s feelings, she commanded—
“Go and speak to her, otherwise she will be following and watching us all the afternoon. Then come back to me!”
Obediently the young man turned his horse into the roughmatorralbrush that crackled like dry wood under his horse’s hoofs.
Celinda at once stopped her cavortings in the distance and galloped to meet him, shaking her finger at him as she came near, and looking as like an offended school-teacher as she could. With tremendous seriousness she inquired,
“Haven’t I told you more than a hundred times, Mr. Watson, that I didn’t want to see you with ... that woman? Besides I have been riding everywhere these last few days without finding you,—and then when at last I do stumble upon you, I find you in bad company!”
But Richard Watson was no longer the youth she had known. He no longer greeted her foolish little speeches with an outburst of laughter. On the contrary he looked offended, though her tone had been a jesting one. Drily, he replied,
“I shall keep what company I choose,señorita. There is, I believe, nothing more between us than asincere friendship, in spite of what people may choose to say. You are not engaged to me, nor do I need to limit my acquaintance simply to satisfy your whims.”
Celinda was speechless with astonishment. Taking advantage of this fact, Watson saluted her in a coldly ceremonious fashion, and galloped off in the direction taken by Elena. But when the girl became convinced that the young North American was really riding away from her, she angrily shook her fist in the air; then she broke into supplicating cries,
“Don’t go,gringuito, listen don Ricardo! Don’t be angry.... Look! What I said was just for fun, like the other times....”
But he pretended not to hear; and as he continued riding away from her, she gathered up the lassoo that hung on the front of the saddle and swung it, catching the fugitive in the noose, and shouting out with forced merriment,
“See, disobedient one, now you must come here!”
The thong had fallen over his head with the same precision as always. As on so many other occasions she drew in the loops, tugging gently at her prey. But this time Richard took out his knife and angrily cut through the rope. So quickly did he free himself that Celinda, absorbed in pulling in the lassoo, nearly fell off her horse when her tugging suddenly ceased to find any resistance.
Watson rode rapidly away, unwinding from about his shoulders the piece of rope that had caught him there. He threw the fragment from him and never once looked back. Celinda meanwhile wound up her lassoo that still trailed weakly on the ground.
When finally the lacerated end of the rope reached her hands she looked at it sadly. Tears blurred her sight. But suddenly the rancher’s daughter looked out towards the dunes where Elena and Richard were riding, and turned white with anger.
“May the devil carry you away with him, miserablegringo! I don’t want to see you, ever again.... I’ll never throw the noose over you any more! and if, some day, you want to see me, you’ll have to catch me the way I used to catch you ... if you can!”
And then, no longer able to conceal from herself the fact that she had been cruelly treated, the Rojas girl covered her face with her hands. The sand dunes and the solitary river had so many times seen her laugh—she did not want them now to see her weep....
THE day set for Canterac’s great surprise party to themarquesahad arrived. Under Moreno’s direction the workmen set up the last trees in the level space near the river.
Groups of curiosity seekers were already admiring from afar the Frenchman’s improvisation of a wood. From Fuerte Sarmiento, and from as far as the capital of the territory of Neuquen, sight-seers were arriving, attracted by the novelty of thefiestathat was to be given at La Presa. Some workmen were still busy swinging ropes of vines from tree to tree, and nailing up clusters of banners.
Friterini, raised to the proud rank of head-waiter, had taken his somewhat dusty swallow tail out of his trunk, and had donned this relic of the days when he had served as emergency waiter in the hotels of Europe and Buenos Aires. Throwing out his stiff shirt bosom, and nervously struggling every few minutes with his white tie, he directed the operations of a troup of half-breed women from thebolichewho had been transformed into waitresses and were setting the tables for the afternoon’s entertainment.
Don Antonio, in other words, theGallego, had also been transformed, at least outwardly, for the occasion. He wore a black suit, and a thick gold chain dangled across his waistcoat. Don Antonio was one of the guests of the occasion; his right to figure among theimportant personages of the settlement had been recognized. However, as the refreshments had been entrusted to his establishment, he had thought it advisable to transfer himself to the scene of the festivities as early in the afternoon as possible in order to see to it that the preparations were properly attended to.
Among the spectators on the other side of the wire enclosure were severalgauchos, among them the notorious Manos Duras, who, after the affair at the boliche, had quietly returned to the settlement in order to offer the explanations he thought adequate. He did not for a moment deny that some of those who had provoked the affair were friends of his, but they were all older and more experienced men than he, so he couldn’t very well be responsible for their acts. He wasn’t their father. When the row occurred he was far away from the settlement. What was the idea anyway in trying to implicate him in things for which he was not to blame?
Thecomisariohad to content himself with these explanations; the proprietor of thebolichealso made haste to accept them, in the belief that it was better to number thegauchoamong one’s friends than one’s enemies. And now Manos Duras stood contemplating with a somewhat mocking stare the preparations for the garden party. The othergauchos, as silent as he, seemed to be laughing to themselves at all the goings-on. Thosegringos, carrying trees away from the spot where God had planted them ... and for awoman!
The inhabitants of La Presa were more outspoken in their comments. In fact some were quite vociferousabout them, and the better dressed of the women expressed themselves very freely on the subject of themarquesa.
“That great big doll ...tal!What she gets the men to do for her!”
And they rehearsed the expenditures that Pirovani, close, even hard-fisted in his dealings with the workmen, had made for thisgringa. Every single day the train from Buenos Aires, or Bahía Blanca brought in presents for themarquesa, and all paid for out of the contractor’s pocket. And then there was the cart with a great tank set up on it, that did nothing else all day long but bring water from the river to themarquesa’shouse, just because she had to have a bath every day!
“She must have something on her skin that won’t come off,” some of the women gravely asserted.
To all of them, obliged as they were to go to the river with a jar on their hips when they wanted water, this tank and cart represented the most unheard of and extravagant of comforts. A bath every day in that land where the slightest breath of wind raised columns of fine dust, columns so enormous that one had to bend way over towards the ground in order to keep one’s balance under their impact ...! And as every woman in the settlement had in her hair and the linings of her clothes the accumulated dust of a week, this extravagance in the use of water enraged them all. It reminded them too vividly of the differences and similarities between them and themarquesa. She had the things they didn’t have; but she was a woman like them ... yet she never for a moment shared in the life of this desert community as they knew it....
To console herself one of them maliciously alluded to themarqués,
“And to think that he’s likely to come along this afternoon with his wife’s lovers! Would you believe that a man could be so blind? No, they must both be in the game....”
And in this fashion all those who had not been invited, and who had no other means of seeing the celebration than by peering through the wire fence, were consoling themselves by making hostile remarks about themarquesa, her friends and her husband.
Celinda rode her horse past the different groups; and she too looked resentfully at the hastily improvised park. Then, perhaps so as not to hear the scandalous remarks of the women, she made off towards the town.
Without for a moment neglecting to keep an eye on the preparation of the tables for the refreshments, Gonzalez was talking with several of his customers, and pointing to the river. He couldn’t have found a better occasion for repeating with professorial gravity some of the things he had heard his compatriot Robledo say about it.
“The Indians had named the river ‘Black’ because of the trouble they had in paddling up its course against the swift current. Then the Spanish explorers named it ‘River of the Willows’ because in former times so many of these trees grew along its banks. There were fewer of them now, but they still constituted the greatest obstacle to navigation, so many were the roots and tree-trunks that rose like ram’s horns to batter in the sides of small craft venturing on these waters. Several centuries passed before it was explored; meanwhile theassertion made by the Indians that it was possible to travel on its waters as far as Chile, and that it formed a link between the Atlantic and Pacific, thus providing a canal far more accessible than the straits of Magellan, was generally believed.
“An English missionary attempted to explore it in the hope that his discoveries would make it possible for England to take possession of the region, and that this waterway would give her a vantage point for attacking the Spanish colonies in the Pacific.
“And then the Spaniards, who had plenty to do because they owned most of America, thought they had better get busy.
“It was Alfarez de la Armada, him they called Villamarino, who, in the last third of the 18th century, when almost the whole of America had been explored and colonized, performed this difficult and obscure task.
“Don Manuel says that Villamarino is the last representative of the great race of Spanish explorers,” asserted theGallego.
“With four small boats, heavily laden and not at all adequate to the journey, he started from Carmen de Patagones on the Atlantic side with an escort of sixty men. This handful of whites was going to plunge into a totally unknown country, in which the most savage and blood-thirsty Indians of the Southern continent were to be found. It was from the banks of theRio Negrothat the invasions of the civilized lands of the viceroy of La Plata started; rather than invasions they were raids by dark-skinned horsemen excited by the prospect of leading off as booty the sleekcattle of the ranches around Buenos Aires. So, with his four little boats, Villamarino was going to navigate for hundreds of leagues between banks on which were ambushed numerous bands of Aucas, the fiercest and most warlike of the native tribes.
“Only those of us who know how violent the current of this river can be at times can imagine something of what that expedition must have been like, navigating against the current, in boats propelled by long poles and a bit of sail. They took along fifteen horses to drag the boats along the shore in the places where there was no way of getting through the tangle of roots, or where the rapids against them were too strong. Four different times the high winds snapped off the masts.... Yes, as don Manuel puts it, Villamarino was the last flash of that fire of courage that had burned in the Spanish Conquistadores for nearly four centuries. The expedition went on month after month. As they had nobaqueanoor guide, they often mistook the way and went up tributaries, so that they had to retrace their steps sometimes for many miles.... They were looking for the sea that the Indians talked about so often.... And at last, at the end of the Limay, which is a part of theRio Negro, they came out on a sea—but an inland one—nothing more than Lake Nahuel Huapi.... But one thing is certain, and that is that until this river is cleaned up no modern explorer, not even with the boats we have now, is going to repeat the trip that the ensign Villamarino started out on a century and a half ago.”
Carried away by his patriotic enthusiasm, Gonzalez went on repeating to his hearers all that the engineerhad told him; but his audience was rapidly melting away, attracted by the preparations for lunch. To most of them the sight of the tables elaborately decorated for the occasion was far more interesting than theGallego’srhapsodies about the young officer of the Spanish navy, and his descriptions of the ancient “River of the Willows”....
The crowd was fast increasing. An orchestra, composed of a few Italians who lived near Neuquen, began to shatter the air with the strident notes of their brass instruments. At once several couples began to dance. This struck don Antonio as a serious lack of respect for the organizer of the festivities.
“Don’t let them dance until themarquesaarrives,” he commanded to Friterini. “This party is in her honor and theseñorde Canterac won’t like it if it begins before she gets here.”
But neither musicians nor dancers had the slightest consideration for don Antonio’s scruples.
Elena meanwhile, most elegantly dressed for the party, was sitting in the drawing-room at home; and she was frowning.
“Such things as this happen to no one but me,” she was thinking. “Why in the world should this news get here today, and just before the garden party? And yet some people don’t believe in fate!”
That day happened to be one of those on which the train came down from Buenos Aires bringing the mail. A short time after it had reached the house Torre Bianca, his face white and full of consternation, came to his wife’s room to show her a letter.
“Look Elena.... This is from our family lawyer....”
A glance at the sheet he held out to her showed her what the letter was. It announced the death of Federico’s mother.
“Ever since you went away to America, the señora marquesa’s health has been very bad. We all of us knew that the end might come at any moment. She was thinking of you when she died. We heard her speak your name even after we thought she would never say another word.
“We enclose a few particulars about the estate which unfortunately....”
Elena stopped reading to look with inquiring eyes at her husband. But he stood with his head sunk between his shoulders, as though stricken himself by the news. She hesitated about speaking; but as time passed and he still stood brooding in silence, she said slowly:
“I suppose that this news, which really can’t have been so unexpected—you remember you said several times that you feared this must happen soon—isn’t going to keep us from going to the gardenfête?”
Torre Bianca raised his eyes and looked at her in amazement.
“What are you saying? Don’t you understand that it is my mother who has died?”
Elena pretended to be somewhat embarrassed; then she said in a tone of kindly sympathy,
“I am so sorry to hear of the poor lady’s death! She was your mother, and that in itself is enough to make me grieve for her. But you must remember, Federico, that I never saw her and that she knew meonly from photographs. Do be calm and try to be reasonable! Just because, on the other side of the globe, this unhappy event has occurred we surely aren’t going to deprive ourselves of going to afiestathat represents a tremendous outlay of money, and that has been prepared especially for us, by our friend....”
She drew near to her husband, and said in a melting voice, while she caressed his cheek—
“After all, dear, one must have a certain regard for social conventions. No one knows about this yet. Just pretend that the letter hasn’t arrived and that you will receive it in day after tomorrow’s mail.... Yes, that is the best way to manage it. You don’t know this sad news yet, and you are coming with me this afternoon.... What do you gain by remembering it now? There is time enough to think of this unfortunate happening later....”
Themarquésindicated that he did not agree with her. Then he raised a hand to his eyes, and leaning one elbow on his knees, he groaned softly to himself,
“She was my mother ... my poor old loving mother....”
They were both silent for a long time. Then, as though unwilling to let his wife see the grief he felt, themarquéstook refuge in the adjoining room. Elena, scowling to herself, and in a thoroughly bad humor, could hear him walking to and fro on the other side of the door; and every now and then she heard him groan. Finally she opened the door through which themarquéshad disappeared.
“You had better stay here, Federico. Don’t worry about me. I’ll go alone and make up an excuse for yourabsence. I’ll see you later then,alma mía! Of course you know that the only reason why I am leaving you now is so as not to hurt our friend’s feelings. Oh, what a bore these social obligations are!”
It was strange to hear the gently pitying tones of her voice when at the same time the corners of her mouth were tense and twisted with anger.
She put on her hat and went out. From the top of the stairs she could see the street, that was for once completely deserted. Everyone in town had gone to see the “park,” Canterac and the contractor, each acting independently, having declared the occasion a general holiday, forcing a day of idleness upon their subordinates.
In front of the house there was a small four-wheeled cart in charge of a half-breed who was asleep on the driver’s seat, a Paraguay cigar between his thick bluish lips. A swarm of flies buzzed about his sweat-smeared face.
Elena was thinking now of her admirers who must by this time be impatiently looking for her. They had refrained from coming to get her, inasmuch as the day before she had announced to them that she wished to arrive at the party with no other escort than her husband. Elena had come to believe that a lady always avoids giving any occasion for gossip.
As she turned away from the house and approached the cart, she heard a sound of galloping hoofs. A rider suddenly appeared from one of the adjoining narrow streets. It wasFlor de Rio Negro.
Elena, by a kind of intuition, like the instinctive alarm of an animal when something hostile is approaching it, guessed that it was she who was coming before she saw her. Without waiting for the horse to stop, the reckless young rider slipped out of the saddle to the ground. Then, with the slow gait of one who has not walked for some hours and is surprised by the strange hard feel of the ground, she approached Elena.
“Señora, a word with you, only one!”
She stepped in between Elena and the cart, cutting her off.
In spite of her cold hauteur Elena was startled by the girl’s hostile eyes. However, she tried to preserve her impressive calm, and with a gesture seemed to inquire,
“Can it really be me you want?”
Celinda, quick enough to understand her, replied with a nod. As themarquesalifted her hand, in an affectation of queenliness, giving the girl permission to speak, Celinda asked in a tone that was sharp and resonant with hate,
“Haven’t you enough with all these men you are driving mad? Do you have to take away those who belong to other women too?”
Elena offered nothing by way of reply but a withering glance that swept the girl from head to foot. Surely she was sufficiently superior to crush the impudent young thing with a look....
“I don’t know you,” Elena was forced to say as the girl still barred her passage. “Besides there are such differences in rank and education separating us that it is useless for me to try to talk to you.”
She tried then to brush Celinda aside; but the girl,irritated beyond bearing by her contemptuous glance, raised the small riding whip she held in her left hand.
“You devil in skirts!”
She aimed a blow at Elena’s face; but the latter defended herself promptly, clutching at her assailant’s arm. The older woman was intensely pale, and her eyes had grown larger with amazement, while a feline light gleamed in their pupils. Then she said in a voice that was slightly hoarse,
“That will do! Don’t trouble ... I’ll consider the blow as given ... and I shan’t forget the gift! I’ll return something equivalent when the proper time comes....”
She let go her grip of Celinda’s arm. The girl seemed to have poured out all her rage. With arms hanging limp, she stood motionless, as though repenting of her attack on her enemy.
Elena made good use of this momentary respite, and climbing into the cart, tapped the driver on the shoulder to rouse him from the sleep in which he had been quite undisturbed by the scene going on within two feet.
As soon as they had progressed beyond the limits of the town, Elena caught sight of the park and the crowd streaming around it. A rider was cantering in the opposite direction as though coming back from the party. With a great sweep of his hat he saluted her. Recognizing Manos Duras, she smiled mechanically in response to his greeting. Then, without seriously taking account of what she was doing, she beckoned to him. Thegauchoinstantly swung his horse around and rode up to the cart, following alongside.
“How are you,señora? Why are you so pale?”
Elena made an effort to regain her serenity. She must still bear the traces of her recent violent emotions, and she wanted to reach thefiestatranquil and smiling. No one must divine the insult she had just received....
As though eager to put an end as quickly as possible to her conversation with Manos Duras, she asked him gayly,
“You told me one day that you admired me and that you were ready to do anything I might ask you, no matter how terrible....”
Manos Duras again raised his hand to his hat in salutation and smiled, showing his sharp wolf’s teeth.
“Command what you will,señora. Shall I kill someone for you?”
As he spoke he looked at her with eyes in which glittered a wolfish desire. Elena pretended to shrink back in alarm from what his words suggested.
“Kill! Oh no! What do you take me for? On the contrary, the favor I ask of you ought to be one you take pleasure in granting. Well, we’ll talk it over. I’ll let you know when I need you....”
As thegaucholingered over his farewells, she indicated with a vigorous gesture that he must leave her. They were now near the site of the “park” and it would scarcely do for themarquesato arrive without her husband and with such an escort!
Manos Duras reined in his horse to watch the cart roll down the road. For some minutes his eyes followed that most extraordinary and fascinating of all the women he had ever encountered. Then, as she passedout of sight, his submissive watch-dog’s expression changed to one of harsh aggressiveness.
The guests were entering the artificial park in full view of the envious populace who were constrained, by thecomisario’svigilance, and that of his four henchmen, to remain outside the wire fence. The guests were for the most part Spanish and Italian merchants from the nearest small towns. Some of them had come from as far as the island of Choel-Choel, the last stopping place of the few boats navigating up the river. Also the foremen and machinists of the works were arriving with their wives, arrayed in the clothes that they kept packed away for their excursions to Bahía Blanca or Buenos Aires.
Robledo was wandering through the short avenues of the park, looking ironically about at Canterac’s absurd creation. Moreno was pointing out with a good deal of pride the particularly admirable features of that part of the work which he had attended to himself.
“The handsomest thing of all is a kind of summerhouse or shrine of flowers at the end of the arbor. Undoubtedly the captain will try to carry off themarquesaand keep her there awhile, but she’s clever enough, she’ll know how to get away when she wants to....”
He winked knowingly as he spoke of Canterac’s plans; then, very gravely, by way of affirming still further his belief in themarquesa’sprudence, he remarked that “she was not the kind of woman that some people believed her to be.”
He seemed disposed to show Robledo the remarkable “shrine of flowers” when suddenly he sped away, mumbling excuses, in the direction of the entrance to the park. Elena was arriving! And, just as he ran, so did her other admirers; but, after greeting them all three, she quite frankly showed her preference for Watson, who had, with a somewhat more dignified pace, also gone to meet her. Even while she talked to the others she did not cease looking at the youth with caressing glances. Robledo, watching the group from afar, was immediately aware of the preference Elena was betraying for his young partner.
Annoyed by this discovery, he drew near to pay his respects to the guest of honor. Then he turned to Watson, and, in a low tone, asked him to take a turn through the tree-borderedallée. But Watson pretended not to understand him. Finally Canterac, who, as the creator of thefiesta, assumed an overwhelming superiority, interposed, and separating Elena from the others, offered her his arm. He must show her all the beauties of his park.... Robledo took advantage of this diversion to lead Watson away under the trees. Scarcely were they alone when, in a fatherly tone, and with a slight nod towards the woman who was walking away down the path, leaning on Canterac’s arm, he said,
“Take care, Richard, my boy! This Circe of ours is trying to subdue you too to her enchantments....”
But Watson, who had always listened deferentially to his partner up to the present, now looked haughtily at him.
“I am old enough to know how to take care of myself,” he replied drily. “Besides, when I want advice I shall ask for it.”
Muttering a few words that Robledo could not make out, young Watson turned his back on him and left him.
Robledo was startled by the boy’s manner. Then he grew indignant.
“This woman again! She goes too far ... robbing me of my best friend....”
The most interesting part of thefiesta, as far as the majority of the guests were concerned, was about to begin. Friterini began to shout out orders to the half-breeds who were to be the waitresses of the occasion. On the tables, made of boards laid on small wooden horses, and covered with recently laundered tablecloths, the rarest and most savory delicacies of the boliche and the other dispensaries of meat and drink in the immediate vicinity of Rio Negro, were being assembled. From Europe and the distant parts of America came choice morsels that had a flavor of tin and tin foil. There were potted meats from Chicago, Frankfort’s famous sausages, Frenchpâté de foie gras, Galician sardines, peppers from Rioja, olives from Seville, all of them foods that had crossed the ocean in metal boxes or wooden crates.
Most extraordinary of all were the drinks. Only a fewgringos, those who were natives of the so-called “Latin countries,” paid any attention to the bottles of dusky wine. The other guests, especially the native sons of the soil, considered all beverages of a reddish hue very ordinary drinks indeed, and quite beneath their notice. In their opinion the clearness and colorlessness of a wine was a mark of its aristocracy. The popping of champagne corks resounded continuously. And many were there who tossed off the sparkling wines as though they were water.
“All this would be pretty expensive in Europe,” exclaimed a greasy-faced Russian. “But here, with the difference in exchange!...”
The order-loving Moreno contemplated the increasing thirst of the guests with considerable anxiety. At the same time, with mysterious gestures, and words muttered in passing, he admonished the enthusiastic Friterini, urging him to be sparing and prudent.
“Provided Canterac’spesoshold out!” he said to himself. “But it begins to look as though we wouldn’t have money enough to pay for it all.”
Meanwhile the Frenchman, with Elena on his arm, was walking under the trees, or stopping to point out the largest of them to his companion.
“This is scarcely the park of Versailles,bella marquesa,” he was saying, imitating the gallantry of past centuries. “But, however humble it may be, it represents the great interest that one man here takes in making himself agreeable to you....”
Pirovani, pretending to be absorbed in his thoughts, was following them from a moderate distance. He could not conceal how much this gardenfête, conceived and executed by his rival, annoyed him. He had to acknowledge that he would never have been able to think of anything like this. It only proved what an advantage it was to have had an education....
As he advanced through the artificial park he tried, without being seen, to push with all his weight againstthe trees nearest him in the hope that they would fall over. But his evil desires were of no avail. All the trees stood firmly erect and immovable. That fool of a Moreno had done things well in so far as helping Canterac was concerned.
But the Italian’s hands turned cold, and all his blood seemed to rush to his heart when he saw the couple he was following disappear in an arbor of dense foliage at the far end of a tree-bordered avenue. This was Moreno’s “shrine of flowers.”
“Now the queen can sit on her throne,” said Canterac. And he pointed to a rustic bench which had a kind of canopy over it, made of garlands of foliage and paper flowers.
Excited by finding himself alone with themarquesa, the engineer began to talk in an impassioned manner of his love for her and of the sacrifices he was ready to make for her. He had often gone on in this way before, but never with such intensity. Stimulated by the success of his plans up to this point, he was nearly beside himself at the thought of having a prolongedtête à têtewith Elena in the bower he had made for her.
She sat down on the rustic bench with the engineer by her side but, although still wearing a provocative smile, she seemed a trifle uneasy. Canterac seized both her hands, and leaned over towards her mouth. Elena, on her guard, eluded him, and struggled to free herself from his grasp.
This struggle was going on when Pirovani appeared at the entrance to the bower. But neither of its two occupants could see him. The contest continued, Canterac bent on reaching themarquesa’slips, Elena, unmindful now of her coquettish pruderies, violently repulsing him.
“This isn’t fair,” she panted. “And my hair will be all disarranged! You are going to spoil my hat.... Do please stop! If you don’t I shall leave you!”
She was defending herself so energetically that Pirovani thought it the moment to intervene. He resolutely stepped into the “shrine.” At sight of him Canterac let go his hold of Elena and stood up. While themarquesapicked up her hair pins and straightened her hat, the two men glared at one another. Finally the Italian spoke.
“You seem in great haste,” he remarked sarcastically, “to collect your pay for what the party has cost you.”
To Canterac it seemed so incredible that the contractor should dare insult him to his face, and in the costly park that was his own invention, that he remained speechless for several seconds. Then his anger, the anger of the man accustomed to commanding and receiving obedience, broke out in a cold blinding flash.
“What right haveyouto speak tome?... I ought to have known better than to have invited as my guest an ignorant immigrant, who has made his money God knows how....”
Pirovani became furious, raging at receiving such an insult, and before Elena. And, as the hot violence within him clamored for satisfaction, by way of reply he threw himself upon the engineer and struck him a heavy blow. In a flash the two men had come to grips and were bending backwards and forwards in desperate attempts to gain the advantage; and Elena, her serenity quite gone, was crying in alarm.
There was a general rush towards the bower, Robledo and Watson arriving first, and together. The engineer and the contractor, tightly grasping one another, were rolling on the floor, breaking down as they did so a part of the “shrine.”
Pirovani, heavier and more powerful than Canterac, was crushing the latter with his weight. Rage had made the contractor forget all the Spanish he knew, and in Italian he was hurling out blasphemies alluding to the Virgin and most of the inhabitants of Heaven, and imploring those who were trying to separate him from the Frenchman to let him devour his adversary’s “gizzard.” In a few seconds he had reverted to the years of his adolescence when in some “gin shop” of the Genoese waterfront, he would knock down some one of his companions in poverty, and roll on the ground with him, pommelling him, and hurling epithets even more violent than his blows.
By dint of vigorous pulling and the application of several fists, some of the men finally succeeded in separating the two assailants. Watson, with utter contempt for both of them, rushed to themarquesaand stood in an attitude of defense before her as though she were menaced by some danger.
Robledo looked at the two rivals. Each one of them from the midst of the group that had gathered round him, was insulting the other, eyes blood-shot, tongues thick and stammering with rage. Both of them had for the moment forgotten all the Spanish they hadlearnt, and were ejaculating the worst words they knew in their respective native languages.
Then he turned to look at themarquesa, who was sighing and exclaiming like a child, while she leaned against Richard Watson.
“Now we’re in for it,” muttered Robledo to himself. “There’ll be murder done yet for that woman!” and without looking again at Watson he turned away.
WATSON and Robledo finished their supper in silence. Their thoughts were still busy with what had occurred a few hours earlier in the park of Canterac’s invention.
An invisible wall seemed to have risen between them. Watson’s expression was sombre, and he avoided looking at his partner. The latter, when from time to time he looked at him, smiled bitterly. He could not now see Watson without thinking of Elena. Undoubtedly it was she, tormented as she was by her desire to control every man in whom she was interested, who had aroused the young American’s feeling against his partner!
Watson got up from table with a few mumbled words, and picked up his hat.
“So, he’s going to see her,” thought Robledo. “He is restless if he can’t be by her side.”
In the main street Watson found various groups engaged in heated discussion. The red rectangles of the windows and doors of thebolichewere frequently eclipsed by the shadows of the customers going in and out. It was not hard to guess that the subject under discussion was the scandalous occurrence of that afternoon, and that everyone was taking sides either with the French engineer or the Italian contractor.
When he reached Elena’s house Sebastiana came outand stood at the top of the outside staircase waiting for him to come up. She too, he could see, was thinking about what had happened at the “park.”
The half-breed looked at Richard with a good deal of severity. “Ay, those men!... Here was thisgringowho had seemed such a good young man, and see how he was treating her little girl, her little Celinda! So he was no different from the others....”
The young engineer walked in without meeting Sebastiana’s eye, and found Elena in the drawing-room. She seemed to be expecting him.
He was about to sit down in an arm-chair, but she would have none of it.
“No, no, here beside me—so no one will hear us.”
And he sat down on the sofa beside her.
She was pale, and there was a hard expression in her eyes, as though she were still in the grip of recent and very disagreeable experiences. The fist-fight between Pirovani and Canterac now occupied second place in her thoughts. The thing that was in the very forefront of her mind was the image of Celinda with her up-raised whip. At that image she trembled with anger.
But Richard’s punctual arrival made her forget her resentment. So, he was glad to grant her request that he spend the evening with her.... She saw that he was looking somewhat uneasily at the doors leading into the room.
“No one will come in,” she reassured him. “My husband is in his room, a little upset by some bad news from home that he received today.... A family affair, that doesn’t much concern me.”
With a sudden softening in her voice she went on,
“How grateful I am for your having come! I fairly shook with terror at the thought of spending these hours alone.... I am so frightfully bored here! That is why I begged you when we parted this afternoon not to leave me all alone....”
And she caught up Watson’s hand, and looked at him with a caress in her eyes.
The young man was agreeably flattered by her glances, but at once there arose in his mind a memory of what had happened earlier that day.
“What were those men fighting about? Was it about you?”
She did not answer at once; finally, looking away, she said with a kind of surrender,
“Perhaps, but I despise them both. You are the only man here I care about, Ricardo.”
She laid her hands on his shoulders; and with a feline undulation she brought her face close to his.
“I suspect,” she murmured, “I suspect that we two are going to go beyond the limits of friendship....”
Stimulated by the novelty of being alone with one another, they became conscious of the daring and vehement desire burning hotly within them. In a few short minutes they were going to cover a distance that in his inexperience he thought would have required several long days’ journeys. She, meanwhile, thought of the young Amazon whose riding-whip had almost struck her in the face. Her outraged vanity, and her desire for vengeance, made her decide upon a cynical course of action; she laughed to herself and her laugh was reflected in a cruel glint in her eyes.
“If you’re jealous you ought to have some reason for it,” Elena was thinking. “I’ll pay you back for your whip-blow.”
In addition, when she perceived that those other two men had fought one another in her presence without causing her any but the most trifling emotion, she decided, with a lack of logic characteristic of her unbalanced brain, that the surest way to make peace between them was to give herself to a third, one who should be more deserving of her interest.
To Watson, since the moment when two men had tried to kill one another for her sake, this woman seemed all the more beautiful and desirable. A feeling of male pride and sex vanity mingled with the emotions that Elena’s words and the contact with her graceful body were arousing in him.
The hands on his shoulders had imperceptibly crept closer and closer together. They met, and the young American felt himself imprisoned by two beautiful arms. Something awakened in his thoughts, like a little flame in a dying fire. He thought he saw before him the sad, noble face of his comrade Torre Bianca, and he tried to shake his head—“No!” and draw back, pushing Elena away.... He couldn’t betray his friend.... It was unworthy of him to act in this fashion, under Torre Bianca’s own roof. Then he saw himself and Celinda riding happily along together. Again he tried to move his head “No!” He blinked and looked profoundly distressed, trying to defend himself, and at the same time certain that he would be unable to do so.
“Poor littleFlor de Rio Negro!” he thought.
The arms wound around his neck pressed gently against him, drawing his head slowly toward Elena’s face; her hungry lips were close to his. Then their mouths met, and Richard thought the kiss would never end.
He felt all the surprise of one who on entering a marvelous palace, sees the doors of a second and even more beautiful hall standing wide open before him; and he passes on through a third and a fourth, until he is lost in the succession of dazzling rooms opening their doors to him.
He trembled at what her mouth revealed; shudders ran down his back.
At that moment, confusedly he thought, just like all the other simple folk at the dam who were in mad pursuit of Elena—“This is woman, the real woman who rules the world.... It is only the women who have known the elegances of life who are worthy of a man’s admiration and worship....”
His hands, as he tried to free himself from the power that threatened to drown his will, came in contact with the soft curves of her body....
Suddenly from the other side of the door came a vigorous knocking. Sebastiana was pounding away on the bare boards with her knuckles, in this fashion asking permission to enter, for the half-breed was too well-trained to come in without announcing her intention. However, before asking permission in this way, she always took the precaution to look through the keyhole. When, finally, her head appeared between the two wooden slides of the door, she said, lowering her malicious eyes,
“My old boss, don Pirovani, wants to see themarquesa. He seems to be in a hurry.”
Richard stood up to go. Elena gave him to understand that she would get rid of the intruder in short order. But the young man had regained his composure, and, aware of the peril he had just escaped, he asked for nothing better than to make use of the opportunity to escape. He didn’t want to stay alone with her again! At the door he almost fell over the contractor who came in, bowing from afar to the “señora marquesa.” Watson shook hands with him and hurried away.
Elena scarcely took the trouble to hide her anger at this inopportune call, and received the Italian with quite obvious ill-humor.
She remained standing to indicate that his stay was to be short, but pre-occupied by his own troubles, he asked if he might sit down, and before Elena could reply, he sank into a chair. Elena merely leaned against the edge of the table.
“My husband is ill,” she said, “and I must look after him. It isn’t anything to worry about ... just an unfortunate occurrence in his family. But now let’s talk about you. What brings you here at this hour?”
Pirovani delayed answering, in order to make his words more impressive when he did finally utter them.
“TheseñorCanterac says that after what happened this afternoon we must have a duel to the death.”
Elena was thinking only of Watson, and this man’s arrival, putting the young American to flight, made her tremble with nervousness. But for his news, she hadonly a slight shrug. It really didn’t interest her! Then she tried to conceal her indifference by saying,
“I don’t see anything so strange about that. If I were a man I would do the same.”
Pirovani, who up to that time had been uncertain as to how he felt about Canterac’s challenge, got up with an air of tremendous resolution.
“Then,” he said, “if you think it is all right, there is nothing more to be said. I’ll fight with the Frenchman, and I’ll fight with half the world if necessary, so that you’ll be convinced that I am worthy of your esteem.”
As he spoke he took Elena’s hand. But it lay so inert in his own that he was discouraged, and let go of it. She looked wearily towards the interior of the house where her husband was, indicating to Pirovani that he was to take his leave. The Italian made haste to obey, but while he moved towards the door he irritated her still more with words and gestures designed to inspire admiration for his devotion and heroism.
As soon as she was alone, Elena called shrilly for Sebastiana. The half-breed was slow in coming to her mistress. She had been escorting her former employer to the street.
“See if you can find theseñorWatson!” ordered Elena hastily. “He can’t be so far away. Tell him to come back.”
The half-breed smiled, lowered her malicious eyes, and said innocently,
“It isn’t so easy to overtake him. He flew out ofhere like a shot from a gun. The devil must have been after him!”
When he left his former house Pirovani went to see Robledo, whom he found reading a book that was propped up against the kerosene lamp in the centre of the table. When the Spaniard saw his caller he greeted him with exclamations and reproaches.
“What got into you? Why do a thing like that?... A man of your years and reputation!... You’re not a fifteen-year-old fighting for your sweetheart!”
The Italian rejected this admonition with a haughty gesture, judging it rather tardy. Then he said solemnly, and as if his own words intoxicated his vanity,
“I am fighting a duel to the death with Captain Canterac, and I want you and Moreno to be my seconds.”
Robledo broke out into exclamations of scandalized impatience.
“But what do you take me for? Do you think that I am going in for any of your nonsense, and make a fool of myself just to keep you company?”
And he went on with a vigorous tirade against Pirovani’s absurd request, the latter nodding obstinately all the while. He was determined to face everything now after what Elena had said.
“I am a man of humble birth,” he said, “I know nothing except how to work; and I’ve got to show everybody that I’m not afraid of this gentleman, accustomed as he is to handling weapons.”
Robledo shrugged at these words, more absurd thananything that had preceded them. Finally he grew tired of his useless protests.
“I see that I might as well give up my attempts to knock a little common sense into you. Very well; I’ll consent to acting as your representative, but on condition that the affair be settled by reason and not by a duel.”
The contractor assumed the attitude becoming to a gentleman whose honor has just been slighted.
“No. I wish to have a duel ... and to the death. I am not a coward and I didn’t come here to find a way out.”
Then he gave expression to what he was thinking.
“Although I never had much education, I know what ought to be done in cases like this one. And further, I know how certain people of high station look at it. I must fight, and I shall fight.”
He spoke with such sincerity that Robledo felt sure Elena must have inspired in him this ridiculous resolution. Undoubtedly she was the person “of high station” who had advised poor Pirovani! Looking pityingly at him, he yet abruptly and emphatically refused to act as second.
Convinced finally that nothing was to be gained by further argument, Pirovani went away and betook himself to Moreno’s.
The next day, early in the morning, don Carlos Rojas, standing in the doorway of his ranch house, saw a rider approaching. The horseman was wearing “city clothes,” and his mount made the rancher smile. It was Moreno.
“Where are you going on that graveyard nag, friendink-spiller? Stop a while and have amatewith me, ehamigo?”
They both went into the room used as a parlor and office, and while a small servant prepared themate, Moreno caught a glimpse through a doorway of the rancher’s daughter sitting in a wicker chair; she looked worried and unhappy, and in her feminine dress seemed to have lost the joyous, rebellious audacity which she always seemed to possess when she wore boy’s clothes.
Moreno bowed to her from the room where he sat, and she acknowledged his salutation with a sad little smile.
“There, you see! She’s not herself at all, not the same girl any more. Anyone would think she was sick. That’s the way it is with young people!”
Celinda shook her head. Sick? Oh no, that wasn’t it.... Then she left the room so that her father and his guest might speak more freely together.
When they had sipped their first cup ofmate, Rojas offered Moreno a cigar, “so that he would have something to puff at”; then lighting his own, he prepared to listen.
“What brings you to these parts, old boy?... You’re not much for riding, and when you come as far as this, it must be for some reason.”
Moreno went on smoking with the calm of an oriental who considers it advisable to excite the curiosity of the person addressing him before taking any part in the conversation.
“Don Carlos,” he said at last, “as a young fellow you had a good deal to do with firearms. When I wasin Buenos Aires I heard that you’d fought in several duels on account of women.”
Rojas looked cautiously about to see whether his daughter happened to be within earshot. Then he smiled with all the fatuous vanity of a man well on in years at the memory of the bold, wild follies of his youth, and said, with an affectation of modesty,
“Bah! Nobody remembers that now! Boyish pranks ... they don’t do that sort of thing these days.”
Moreno thought it proper to suspend the conversation by a long pause; then he announced,
“Canterac and Pirovani are fighting a duel tomorrow. They are going to shoot to kill.”
Don Carlos was frankly amazed.
“But such things are out of style!... And here in this desert of a place?”
Moreno nodded and remained silent. The rancher also refrained from speaking but he looked questioningly at his caller. What in the world had he, don Rojas, to do with all this? And was it simply for the pleasure of giving him this bit of news that the government clerk had taken such a long ride?
“The captain,” said Moreno, “has arranged with themarquésof Torre Bianca and thegringoWatson to be his seconds. As they’re both of them his colleagues, they can’t very well refuse.”
This seemed quite a matter of course to Rojas. But what the devil was it to him who the seconds were!
“Pirovani has only one second so far. That is myself,” Moreno continued. “I came to ask you to helpus out, don Rojas. You know how to act in this sort of affair. I wish you’d serve with me as a second for our Italian friend.”
But the rancher protested vehemently.
“Drop all this fool business, man! Why should I get mixed up in the squabbles of these people? They’re all my friends ... and anyway, I’m too old to have anything to do with this sort of thing. I don’t care to make that kind of splurge, not at my age....”
But Moreno was not to be put off so easily, and several minutes of heated argument followed. Finally the rancher gave some signs of abandoning his first position. He was more won over by what seemed to him the mysterious nature of this duel than by any of Moreno’s pleas. As a second he might learn some curious and interesting things....
“Well, then, I’ll do what you want. What the devil will this ink-spiller be after me for next?”
Then he smiled slyly, slapping Moreno on the leg, and asked him, lowering his voice,
“And why do they want to kill one another? About a woman eh?... Sure as I breathe, thatmarquesahas something to do with it ... she seems to drive all the men around her crazy....”
Moreno assumed a mysterious expression, at the same time raising his finger to his lips to impress Rojas with the need for caution.
“Careful, don Carlos! Remember that themarquéswill be acting with us as a second in this duel.... Perhaps, even, as an expert in this sort of thing he will manage the whole affair.”
The rancher began to laugh, again slapping hisfriend on the leg. So hearty was his laughter that at times he raised his hand to his throat as though choking in the outbursts of his amusement.
“That’s a pretty thing, eh? So the husband is going to superintend the duel! And the fight is about his wife.... But thesegringosare an amusing lot.... I’d like to see this business through! It beats anything I ever heard of....”
Then he added gravely,
“Yes, I’ll act as second. This is better than a play in Buenos Aires, or one of those movies my little girl is so crazy about....”
In the early afternoon, after lunching at the ranch, Moreno returned to the settlement; he dismounted in front of Pirovani’s house.
Torre Bianca was walking up and down in the room he used as an office. He was in mourning and looked even more unhappy and discouraged than usual. In his pacing back and forth he stopped every now and then beside a table on which was an open case containing a brace of revolvers. He had spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the weapons and looking at them meditatively, as though the sight of them evoked distant memories. But at moments he forgot the revolvers and gazed at a photograph beside them on the table; it was his mother’s, and as he looked at it tears filled his eyes.
After a ceremonious salutation Moreno hastened to assure him that he had found another second, and that he came fully authorized by him to discuss the preparations for the duel. Themarquésacknowledgedhis speech with a bow, and showed him the case of weapons.
“I brought them from Europe. They have played a part in several affairs at least as serious as this one. Look them over carefully. We have no others and they will have to be found acceptable by both parties.”
The government clerk indicated that he considered such an examination as themarquéssuggested quite unnecessary, and that whatever the latter thought fit to suggest he would find quite acceptable.
Themarquéswent on talking with a courtly dignity which deeply impressed Moreno.
“This poor worthy gentleman doesn’t really know what this situation is,” he thought. “Yet he is so good and likeable.... He evidently hasn’t the faintest conception of what has been going on, of what his wife has been up to ... nor of the unfortunate part that he himself is going to play....”
“As neither of the two parties wishes to give any explanations, and as the offence is unquestionably serious, the duel will have to be to the death. Don’t you agree with me?”
Moreno had assumed a portentously solemn expression just as soon as he perceived how serious this conversation was to be, and now he silently nodded his approbation.
“My principal,” themarquéscontinued, “will not be satisfied with anything less than three shots at twenty paces, with five seconds for taking aim.”
Moreno blinked to show how amazed he was by these conditions, and wished to indicate that he was opposed to accepting them, but he remembered asecond interview that he had had that morning with Pirovani before he set out for the Rojas ranch.
The Italian had appeared to be transformed by his bellicose enthusiasm. He rejoiced in this opportunity to present himself to the “señora marquesa” in the light of a novel hero.
“Accept all the conditions,” he said to Moreno, “however frightful they may be. I want to make it quite dear that even though I started out in life a simple workman, I am more courageous and more of a gentleman than this French captain!”
So the government employee ended by nodding.
“Tonight,” themarquéscontinued, “all four seconds are to meet at Watson’s place to put the conditions into writing, and tomorrow as soon as it is light, the duel will take place.”
Pirovani’s representative called attention to the fact that don Carlos Rojas would not be able to be present at this meeting because he had that afternoon set out for Fuerte Sarmiento in search of a doctor for the duel. But his friend had authorized him to subscribe to any conditions that might be set down. Whereupon the two seconds considered the interview at an end.
As Moreno went out of the house, he saw the police commissioner standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the street. Evidently thecomisariowas waiting for him. And don Roque did not take long to express his indignation.
“You people seem to think that you can do anything you like, just as though there were no law in the land, no authority, no anything, just as though the Indians were still running it. Well, I’m the police commissioner, though you don’t seem to know it, and it’s my job to keep other people from doing all the crazy things that they take it into their heads to do. When is that duel to take place? I must know.”
Moreno was not disposed to give the information requested of him, and thecomisario, in view of this disinclination to obey, went on in a gentler tone,
“You might as well tell me without making any bones about it. You know very well that there isn’t one of you who would approve of such a thing taking place with me present in the town. Tell me when the thing is coming off.... So I can get out before it happens.”
Moreno murmured something in his ear and thecomisarioacknowledged the confidence by grasping the official’s hand. Then he walked towards his horse who was hitched near by, and just as he was about to mount him, he added, very low,
“I am going to spend the night in Fuerte Sarmiento and I won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon. Do whatever you like.... I know nothing about it!”