The Blood of the Conquerors | Page 7

his mother and his eldest sister in a carriage which had been among the family possessions for about a quarter of a century. It had once been a fine equipage, and had been drawn by a spirited team in the days before Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but now it had a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple of rough coated, low-headed brutes, one of which was noticeably smaller than the other. The coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs about the Delcasar house.
The Montezuma ball took place in the new Eldorado Hotel which had recently been built by the railroad company for the entertainment of its transcontinental passengers. It was not a beautiful building, but it was an apt expression of the town's personality. Designed in the ancient style of the early Spanish missions, long, low and sprawling, with deep verandahs, odd little towers and arched gateways it was made of cement and its service and prices were of the Manhattan school. A little group of Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets, with silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always seated before its doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It had a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where a Navajo squaw sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the edification of the guilded stranger from the East. On the platform in front of it, perspiring Mexicans smashed baggage and performed the other hard labour of a modern terminal.
Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast between the old and the new which everywhere characterized the town. Generally speaking, the old was on exhibition or at work, while the new was at leisure or in charge.
When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel, it had to take its place in a long line of crawling vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a decrepit-looking rig when nearly every one else came in an automobile. He hoped that no one would notice them. But the smaller of the two horses, which had spent most of his life in the country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing a headlight, blocking traffic, and making the Delcasars a target for searchlights and oaths. The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy woman in voluminous black silk, became excited and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill and useless directions to the coachman in Spanish. People began to laugh. Ramon roughly seized his mother by the arm and dragged her down. He was trembling with rage and embarassment.
It was an immense relief to him when he had deposited the two women on chairs and was able to wander away by himself. He took up his position in a doorway and watched the opening of the ball with a cold and disapproving eye. The beginning was stiff, for many of those present were unknown to each other and had little in common. Most of them were "Americans," Jews and Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike in their dress suits, but the women displayed an astonishing variety. There were tall gawky blonde wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty black-eyed Jewesses, best dressed of all; swarthy Mexican mothers of politically important families, resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and pretty dark Mexican girls of the younger generation, who did not look at all like the se???oritas of romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a thoroughly American manner.
The affair finally got under way in the form of a grand march, which toured the hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing couples. Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances without feeling any desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent, which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the case with youthful glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some of the capers cut by prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled upon one couple with a real sense of resentment and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James MacDougall, the lawyer and real estate operator with whom the Don had formed a partnership, and whom Ramon believed to be systematically fleecing the old man.
Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with a smooth brown face, strikingly set off by fierce white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped, angular woman, who danced painfully, but with determination. The two had nothing to say to each other, but both of them smiled resolutely, and the Don visibly perspired under the effort of steering his inflexible friend.
Although he did not formulate the idea, this couple was to