Chapter IV - Page 2

him as he deserved; and he remarked coolly that stories of that sort were always exaggerated, as well as a man's success with women. But one had only to look at that face, with its expression of bitter-humorous knowledge, its combination of strength and weakness, to feel sure that there were chapters in his life that no woman outside of them would ever read. I always felt, when with Diego Estenega, that I was in the presence of a man who had little left to learn of life's phases and sensations.

"The sun will freckle thy white neck," he said to the matron who would not raise her eyes.

"Shall I bring thy mantilla, Dona Carmen?"

She looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her soft black eyes suddenly before the penetrating gaze of the man who was so different from the caballeros.

"It is not well to be too vain, senor. We must think less of those things and more of--our Church."

"True; the Church may be a surer road to heaven than a good complexion, if less of a talisman on earth. Still I doubt if a freckled Virgin would have commanded the admiration of the centuries, or even of the Holy Ghost."

"Don Diego! Don Diego!" cried a dozen horrified voices.

"Diego Estenega, if it were any man but thou," I exclaimed, "I would have thee excommunicated. Thou blasphemer! How couldst thou?"

Diego raised my threatening hand to his lips. "My dear Eustaquia, it was merely a way of saying that woman should be without blemish. And is not the Virgin the model for all women?"

"Oh," I exclaimed, impatiently, "thou canst plant an idea in people's minds, then pluck it out before their very eyes and make them believe it never was there. That is thy power,--but not over me. I know thee." We were standing apart, and I had dropped my voice. "But come and talk to me awhile. I cannot stand those babies," and I indicated with a sweep of my fan the graceful, richly-dressed caballeros whose soft drooping eyes and sensuous mouths were more promising of compliments than conversation. "Neither Alvarado nor Castro is here. Thou too wouldst have gone in a moment had I not captured thee."

"On the contrary, I should have captured you. If we were not too old friends for flirting I should say that your handsome-ugly face is the most attractive in the garden. It is a pretty picture, though," he went on, meditatively,--"those women in their gay soft gowns, coquetting demurely with the caballeros. Their eyes and mouths are like flowers; and their skins are so white, and their hair so black. The high wall, covered with green and Castilian roses, was purposely designed by Nature for them. Sometimes I have a passing regret that it is all doomed, and a half-century hence will have passed out of memory."

"What do you mean?" I