Part 39

"I am Señor Yankton. What do you want?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the man, stepping back a pace and regarding Dick critically. "Your appearance answers the description well, Señor, but that is not enough--I must have proof." Just then a vaquero on night duty who had been lounging in the deep shadow at the far end of the veranda came forward on hearing the sounds of voices.

"Diego," said Dick, addressing the latter, "tell this gentleman whether I be Señor Yankton or not. He says he wishes to see him."

"Of a truth, Señor, here is the man you seek," answered Diego, addressing the stranger.

"Bueno--good!" ejaculated the Mexican, pulling a sealed packet from the inner pocket of his jacket. "I come from the Rio Plata, six days' journey toward the west. I have been commissioned to deliver this to you, Señor," and he handed the packet to Dick who, taking it, gave instructions to Diego that the man and his horse be properly housed for the night. Then, with an "hasta la vista," and "God be with you until the morrow, Señor," he retired to his room. There, by the dim light of a candle, he carefully scrutinized the address on the packet, but did not recognize the writing. Nevertheless, he instinctively felt as he turned it over in his hands before breaking the seal, that, in some manner or other, it was intimately concerned with his fate.

XXVII

The preparations for the fandango were complete. The men and women of the household, under Juan Ramon's supervision, had worked hard since sunrise, stringing gayly colored lanterns and arranging tables and chairs, palms and potted flowers and shrubs in the patio. It was close on to five o'clock and they now rested in the patio in the shade of its arcades, smoking cigarettes and sipping black coffee, and chatting and laughing as they viewed with satisfaction the results of their handiwork. The day gave promise of a perfect night. It was to be a typical Spanish fiesta, and in order that the illusion might be complete, both the Whites and the Indians were to appear in their national costumes. All the leading Spanish families of the town and the neighborhood would be present. Not an invitation had been refused.

Captain Forest had agreed to take tea with Blanch in the garden, and, true to his word, he appeared punctually, almost on the minute. The pretty Rosita, the only one of the household excepting Señora Fernandez and Juan Ramon who understood and spoke English after a fashion, withdrew reluctantly after depositing her tray containing tea and tortillas upon the table. She adored the beautiful Americana, and had been doing a great deal of thinking of late. The reason for her coming might not be Don Felipe at all, but Captain Forest, the grand Señor. Who could say? The ways of the Americano, the gringo, were so different from theirs. Everything they did was exactly opposite to their way of thinking and doing things. No well-bred, unmarried Spanish woman would dare take tea alone with a man unless they were engaged.

The signs of autumn were visible on every hand. The long, languid, summer travail had ceased and the season of dreams begun. Though the sky was a clear steel-blue overhead, the horizon was veiled in a thin blue haze into which the landscape and distant objects seemed to fade and lose themselves. Filmy threads of gossamer floated through the air, suffused with a soft golden glow. Most of the birds had ceased to sing and the drone of insects became less persistent, as if fearful to disturb the hush and calm that pervaded the land.

Captain Forest noticed, as he seated himself at the table opposite Blanch, that the golden glow in her hair was almost a perfect match to the shafts of sunlight which sifted down upon her through the branches of the trees overhead. And he wondered at his resisting powers--why the spell of her fascination no longer held him as of old, not realizing that his love for her had waned in the same proportion that he had grown beyond her. The air of restraint which existed between them would have been apparent even to a stranger, but Blanch had decided to dissipate this feeling if possible. She laughed and chatted as though entirely at her ease, as though nothing had ever come between them; making sarcastic remarks on the customs of the country; calling into requisition all the blandishments and fascinations which a woman of her intelligence and attraction was capable of exercising upon a man. Every word, every look and gesture fell upon him like a caress. She flattered, cajoled and contradicted him, employing that subtle, deceptive art of refined coquetry to which a sensitive nature like the Captain's was most susceptible. Nor were its effects lost upon him; they were soon both at their ease. She was the old Blanch again; the girl and companion of his youth--the woman of yesterday.

The struggle that was being fought out inch by inch between her and Chiquita was drawing swiftly to its close, and must end as abruptly as it began. She had only begun to realize what the full significance of love meant in the hour that she felt the loneliness occasioned by the lack of it. She had miscalculated. She thought she was stronger than Captain Forest, but could she have cared for him had he been a weaker man? It was his strength which she both loved and hated, and deep down in her heart she knew full well that, were he weaker than herself, she must have ended by despising him. She, like Chiquita, was fighting for her life, her very existence so to speak; but of course he did not divine the full significance of the struggle--what it meant to them both; no man could.

"Does the charm of this land still continue to hold you, Jack?" she asked carelessly, passing him a cup of tea.

"More than ever," he answered, lighting a cigarette and wondering what she was leading up to.

"Don't you think you have had about enough of it?" she continued, with just a shade of sarcasm in her voice. "You have had a royal vacation and I'm glad you have enjoyed yourself so thoroughly, but, honestly, don't you think it's about time you were returning to your work again, to the world to which you belong, of which you are a part and from which, in spite of all effort and argument, you cannot possibly separate yourself? You know, I never could take your idea seriously, Jack," she added, with increasing confidence, addressing him as one would a naughty child. He only smiled by way of reply, and quietly blew a ring of smoke into the air.

"I see you are as obstinate and determined as ever," she continued rather petulantly. "Don't be overconfident though; you might fail, you know, and failure is always discouraging--it involves such a waste of time."

"If I do, it will be the first time I have failed." He was about to continue, but checked himself. They were getting on dangerous ground. She understood his inference and colored and smiled. For some time neither spoke. A gold leaf, one of the first heralds of autumn, dropped silently down from the bough overhead to the center of the table. He took another sip of tea.

"Jack," she said at length, raising her eyes from her hands in her lap where she toyed with her fan, "supposing a position were offered you, one quite worth your while, would you return? Not immediately, but later on, when you have grown a little tired of playing at the game of life? In six months, say--or even a year if you like?" Her whole attitude and expression had changed, and a look of pleading and expectancy shone from her eyes. Again he smiled. What was she driving at? he asked himself.

"I'm afraid it will be longer than that, Blanch," he answered. "Besides, what position could possibly be open to me? You know, my name is struck from the lists. At least, it ought to be if it isn't."

"Possibly," she answered. "But, if you cared enough, there might be another chance!"

"What do you mean?" he interrupted, regarding her curiously. In reply, she quietly drew an official document from her bosom and handed it to him across the table without a word. He colored, and she saw that his hand trembled slightly, betraying the emotion he felt as he opened the envelope and glanced hastily over its contents. "The Ministry to Turkey--Blanch!" he gasped, regarding her in astonishment.

"Yes," she answered nervously, watching closely the effect the news had upon him. "I received it a week ago. The President knows how clever you are, Jack, and has promised to keep the position open for you if you will consent to accept it. You know, he always had a warm place in his heart for you."

"Blanch!" he said again, overcome by emotion. And laying the document down upon the table in front of him he rose to his feet.

"Turkey, Jack, is but a step to London, St. Petersburg, Berlin or Paris," she said softly, looking up at him and catching her breath in the effort to conceal her excitement. "It is yours, Jack, if you wish it. Understand," she resumed, lowering her gaze and running her slender white hand slowly back and forth over the edge of her half-open fan, "that it is yours without reservation. You are under no obligations. Turkey and--I are two different things," she added slowly and with difficulty, without looking up; her neck and face turning a deep scarlet. She felt the intensity of his blazing eyes upon her.

"Blanch!" he cried, and this time there was a note of anger in his voice. "Don't think me ungrateful, I beg of you. I appreciate what you have done, and I thank you with my whole heart, but--I can't do it, Blanch!"

"Jack!" she cried, throwing off the mask and springing to her feet. "I can't stand it any longer! I can't see you wreck your life in this way! Can't you see the folly you are committing? Don't think me presumptuous; that I am trying to meddle, interfere in your life. I am merely trying to save you from yourself! It's your last chance, Jack. Go back again and never mind me; I've nothing to do with it! I can easily understand how this life can have a certain fascination for you, but only for a time; it can't last. The more I see of it, the more I'm convinced that I'm right. What's the use of mincing words, fencing about the truth any longer? I understand--I've seen it from the first. It's not this life, but the woman that holds you!" she cried abruptly and passionately, almost fiercely, betraying her jealousy.

"Don't wreck your life and happiness before it is too late. You must tire of her as inevitably as you will tire of this life, and what then? Can't you see that, when you have exhausted the glamour, and the fascination of things is gone, she would no longer be a companion to you? The difference between you--your lives, your world and hers, is too great. It is insurmountable--impassable! What can she know of the world which you and I know, to which you belong? Of another race, another blood, she must ever remain an alien, a thing apart from yourself; there can never be a true affinity between you. She is a savage--an aborigine sprung from the soil. The tinsel and veneer of civilization which she has acquired doesn't change her and can't endure. She is still a savage in spite of it, the product of savage ancestry living close to the soil. The simplicity and glamour and freedom of this life casts a spell over one and attracts one of your adventurous nature, sated with the pleasures and luxuries of our world, but will the spell last? Once you have exhausted the simple, elemental joys of such a life, it must become irksome, mere animal existence, unbearable, positive boredom to you. That in her which attracts you now must inevitably become commonplace in time and repel you. You could not endure that, Jack; you who are evolved through thousands of generations from a higher, superior race. Your reason and instinct must tell you that.

"Jack!" she cried in a fresh outburst, "we were made for one another! How can she, an Indian, the product of savagery, understand you who are of a different race, the product of civilization? Your soul can never find the full response in hers that it can in mine. I know I was foolish--call it willful rather than foolish--the instinct that is born in me to command. I should not have let you go. I should have consented to share the life you proposed, but I did not believe you were in earnest; I did not think it would last. Besides, how could you have expected me to understand? It was too much; you had no right to ask it of me then. I thought, of course, you would come back to me again, Jack; I waited for that. Can't you understand? But you didn't come back, and I repented of my mistake a thousand times. We all make mistakes, Jack!"

His manhood revolted against being compelled to listen to her confession, her pleading. It was undignified, cowardly. It disgusted him and he hated himself for it, but what could he do?