The Doomswoman | Page 9

not made for us; and I am sufficiently interested in
California to wish to see her rise from her sleep and feel and live in
every part of her." He turned suddenly to Chonita. "If I were a
sculptor," he said, "I should use you as a model for a statue of
California. I have the somewhat whimsical idea that you are the human
embodiment of her."
Before she could muster her startled and angry faculties for reply,
before Estenega had finished speaking, in fact, Castro brought his open
palm down on the table, his eyes blazing.
"Oh, execrable profanation!" he cried. "Oh, unheard-of perfidy! Is it
possible that a man calling himself a Californian could give utterance
to such sentiments? Oh, abomination! You would invite, welcome,
uphold, the American adventurer? You would tear apart the bosom of
your country under pretense of doctoring its evils? You would cast this
fair gift of Almighty God at the feet of American swine? Oh, Diego!
Diego! This comes of the heretic books thou hast read. It is better to
have heart than brain."
"True: the palpitations do not last as long. We have had proof which I
need not recapitulate that to preserve California to itself it must be tied

fast to Mexico, otherwise would it die of anarchy or fall a prey to the
first invader. So far so good. But what has Mexico done for California?
Nothing; and she will do less. She is a mother who has forgotten the
child she put out to nurse. England and France and Russia would do as
little. But the United States, young and ambitious, will give her greedy
attention, and out of their greed will California's good be wrought. And
although they sweep us from the earth, they will plant fruit where they
found weeds."
Don José pushed back his chair violently and left the table. Estenega
turned to Chonita and found her pallid, her nostrils tense, her eyes
flashing.
"Traitor!" she articulated. "I hate you! And it was you--you--who kept
my loyal brother from serving his country in the Departmental Junta.
He is as full of fire and patriotism as Castro; and yet you, whose blood
is ice, could be a member of the Electoral College and defeat the
election of a man who is as much an honor to his country as you are a
shame."
He smiled a little cruelly, but without anger or shame in his face.
"Señorita," he said, "I defeated your brother because I did not believe
him to be of any use to his country. He would only have been in the
way as a member of the Junta, and an older man wanted the place.
Your brother has Don José's enthusiasm without his magnetism and
remarkable executive power. He is too young to have had experience,
and has done neither reading nor thinking. Therefore I did my best to
defeat him. Pardon my rudeness, señorita; ascribe it to revenge for
calling me a traitor."
"You--you----" she stammered, then bent her head over her plate, her
Spanish dignity aghast at the threatening tears. Her hand hung clinched
at her side. Diego took it in spite of resistance, and, opening the rigid
fingers, bent his head beneath the board and kissed them.
"I believe you are somewhat of a woman, after all," he said.

IV.
The party deserted the table for the garden, there to idle until evening
should give them the dance. All of the men and most of the women
smoked cigaritos, the latter using the gold or silver holder, supporting it
between the thumb and finger. The high walls of the garden were
covered with the delicate fragrant pink Castilian roses, and the girls
plucked them and laid them in their hair.
"Does it look well, Don Diego?" asked one girl, holding her head
coquettishly on one side.
"It looked better on its vine," he said, absently. He was looking for
Chonita, who had disappeared. "Roses are like women: they lose their
subtler fragrance when plucked; but, like women, their heads always
droop invitingly."
"I do not understand thee, Don Diego," said the girl, fixing her wide
innocent eyes on the young man's inscrutable face. "What dost thou
mean?"
"That thou art sweeter than Castilian roses," he said and passed on.
"And how is, thy little one?" he asked a young matron whose lithe
beauty had won his admiration a year ago, but to whom maternity had
been too generous. She raised her soft brown eyes out of which the
coquettish sparkle had gone.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" she cried. "And so smart, Don Diego. He beats
the air with his little fists, and--Holy Mary, I swear it!--he winks one
eye when I tickle him."
Estenega sauntered down the garden endeavoring to imagine Chonita
fat and classified.