Part 18

Nothing could have been farther from the mark. She might have known that Jack could not have been caught with so thin a bait. All night long she tossed on her pillow, or silently rose to gaze at the stars from the window.

"Oh, if she only were not so beautiful!" she moaned as the first pale streaks of light in the east told her that day had finally dawned, and she crept stealthily back to bed again. Of course Jack, the wretch, was sleeping peacefully--that was the irony of fate! What did he know of suffering? But he would pay for this!

Their rooms overlooked the patio, and from behind an angle of a screen she could look straight across it into the garden beyond as she lay in bed. The bright shafts of the morning sun sifted down through the branches of the trees and lay in patches of gold on the grass and flowers beneath and flooded the patio with light. Above the tops of the trees and one corner of the low roof, the clear, pale blue skyline was just visible. Butterflies and humming-birds darted in and out among the fragrant white clematis and honeysuckle and passion vines that hung from the arcades surrounding the court, or hovered over the fountain and basin of gold fish in its center, edged with grasses and ferns. The notes of the golden oriole and cooing of pigeons and wood-doves mingling with the silvery jingle of an occasional vaquero's spurs, came from the garden beyond.

How peaceful it was! After all, why was the place so unusual, so different from the rest of the world? But forget where one was, and the scene might have been one in Algiers or Egypt, or in a town in Spain or Northern Italy. And why, she asked herself, as her thoughts reverted to Chiquita, was this Indian woman so very different from themselves?

Dress her as they were dressed, and place her in the proper surroundings, and she would easily pass for a Gypsy or a Spaniard. Was there any reason to believe that the queens of Sheba and Semiramis with their tawny skins were any less fair than she, Blanch Lennox, with her rosy, soft white complexion? Or Chiquita a shade darker than Cleopatra, the witch of the Nile, whose beauty caused the downfall of Antony and with it the waning power and splendor of ancient Egypt?

Was her lineage superior to Chiquita's, the descendant of a long line of rulers whose ancestry stretched back into the dim, remote past as ancient as the hills, the record of whose lives and deeds stood inscribed on the ruined temples and palaces scattered throughout the land where they once dwelt at a time when her European ancestors roamed the wilderness half naked and clad in the skins of wild beasts?

White men of eminence had married Indians and their descendants were proud of their lineage. True, Chiquita was an exception just as she towered above most women of her race. And who were they, that they should criticize--vaunt their superiority in the face of the universal scheme of things? Were they really any better? The same passions, longings and aspirations that swayed them, swayed the Red man as well.

Their daily lives were different--their aspirations were directed in different channels, that was all. What was true civilization and culture, any way? Who had ever succeeded in defining them? The so-called civilized world might prattle of culture. Its ideas compared with those of mankind as a whole were purely relative and of a local origin and color, and could not be gauged by a uniform standard of ethics. What pleases the one fails to attract the other. The man in power who talks of culture may be taken seriously by those of his own race who stand by and applaud his words, but remove him from his home surroundings and place him on a footing of equality with those of a different race and environment and his arguments fail to convince.

Did the harangues of Louis the Sixteenth's tormentors convince him of the ethical standards of universal justice, or John Brown's sacrifice the representatives of a slave-holding population?

Which is the most convincing--the example set by the early Spartans, or that of the man who surrounds himself with every luxury and convenience of modern life; the man who reads books and lives in a house and travels by train and automobile, or he who dwells in a tent, who is ignorant of letters, and prefers the slower locomotion of horse and foot? Who is the arbiter of fashion? The sun shines alike on the just and the unjust, the great world still continues to laugh and goes on its way in spite of men's philosophies, but tear up the map, as the French say, and where are our standards and codes?

Prove it if you can, that the wild flower in the meadow is less beautiful than the one reared beneath the hand of the gardener. Argue and theorize as we will, our sophistries count for little when we are brought face to face with the realities of life. The law of compensation and certainty of facts still hold the balance when the bed-rock of human existence is reached. One might as well expect the mountains to slip into the sea, or the stars to pause in their courses to hearken to the voice of a modern Joshua as a man in love with a vision of beauty, to listen to ethics.

It was quite evident that somebody had lied. In fact, all men of her race had been lying from the beginning of time, for what, after all, did civilization amount to if it were not convincing? Did it ever soothe a wounded heart, stifle the pangs of jealousy, or was it ample compensation for the loss of the great prize of life--happiness?

Civilization and blindness were fast becoming synonymous terms, and there were even moments when one almost fancied one heard the laughter of the gods. Let the dull brute civilized herd sweep by, all its moralizing and sophistries could not arouse so much as a single heart-beat where sentiment was concerned.

The truth of these convictions surged in upon her with overwhelming force. Had Jack also noted them, she asked herself.

Possibly, but not, perhaps, with the keener intuition of the woman. She breathed hard. Hot tears of rage, jealousy and disappointment surged to her eyes. She could endure it no longer--she felt as though she would stifle. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed and then sprang to the floor, noticing for the first time the pretty little Mexican girl, Rosita, who at Bessie's summons, had entered and deposited a tray containing oranges, chocolate and tortillas on the table in the center of the room.

The dark circles beneath Blanch's eyes and her general appearance of a disheveled Eve told Bessie how little she had slept.

"I knew you were thinking of her," she said, throwing herself back in the pillows and stretching her arms. Her eyelids drooped for a moment over her great violet eyes and she laughed lightly with the contentment of one whose heart is free.

"Of course I am," returned Blanch, coloring and biting her lip. "What else should I be thinking of?"

"Do you know, I rather like her," continued Bessie, raising on one elbow and stretching herself again with the delicious satisfaction of one who has slept soundly and well.

"And I hate her!" cried Blanch. And seizing Chiquita's dagger which lay on the table beside the tray, she plunged it viciously into an orange.

Things began to assume a more favorable aspect. Even Mrs. Forest had plucked up enough courage to venture beyond the confines of the Posada's garden.

Late one afternoon as she with Blanch and Bessie descended the veranda steps, preparatory to a stroll through the town, a horseman, dressed in the height of Mexican fashion, shot suddenly round the curve in the road at full gallop and drew rein before them, tossing the dust raised by his animal's hoofs into their faces.

Dust and a horse's nose thrust suddenly into Mrs. Forest's face could hardly improve a temper already strained to the breaking point.

"Are people beasts--mere cattle of the fields to be trampled upon by a horse?" she gasped, as soon as she had recovered sufficiently from her surprise.

"A thousand pardons--I did not see you!" replied the horseman, his English colored with a slight accent.

"What are people's eyes for?" returned Mrs. Forest, making no attempt to conceal her irritation.

"Mrs. Forest, I see you do not recognize me," answered the horseman, smiling and raising his broad-brimmed sombrero which partially concealed his features.

"Don Felipe Ramirez!" cried Blanch and Bessie in the same breath. "How," exclaimed Blanch, "could you expect us to recognize you in that costume? Why are you masquerading in such a disguise?" Don Felipe laughed as he swung himself lightly from the saddle.