The Doomswoman | Page 6

the nurse with a fervent sigh of relief which made her appear girlish and natural.
After Estenega had lifted her to her horse he dried her sleeve with his handkerchief. He lingered over the task; the cavalcade and populace went on without them, and when they started they were in the rearward of the blithesome crowd.
"Do you know what I thought as I stood by you in the church?" he asked.
"No," she said, indifferently. "I hope you prayed for the fortune of the little one."
"I did not; nor did you. You were too afraid you would drop it. I was thinking how unmotherly, I had almost said unwomanly, you looked. You were made for the great world,--the restless world, where people fly faster from monotony than from a tidal wave."
She looked at him with cold dignity, but flushed a little. "I am not unwomanly, se?or, although I confess I do not understand babies and do detest to sew. But if I ever marry I shall be a good wife and mother. No Spanish woman was ever otherwise, for every Spanish woman has had a good mother for example."
"You have said exactly what you should have said, voicing the inborn principles and sentiments of the Spanish woman. I should be interested to know what your individual sentiments are. But you misunderstand me. I said that you were too good for the average lot of woman. You are a woman, not a doll; an intelligence, not a bundle of shallow emotions and transient desires. You should have a larger destiny."
She gave him a swift sidelong flash from eyes that suddenly looked childish and eager.
"It is true," she said, frankly, "I have no desire to marry and have many children. My father has never said to me, 'Thou must marry;' and I have sometimes thought I would say 'No' when that time came. For the present I am contented with my books and to ride about the country on a wild horse; but perhaps--I do not know--I may not always be contented with that. Sometimes when reading Shakespeare I have imagined myself each of those women in turn. But generally, of course, I have thought little of being any one but myself. What else could I be here?"
"Nothing; excepting a Joan of Arc when the Americans sweep down upon us. But that would be only for a day; we should be such easy prey. If I could put you to sleep and awaken you fifty years hence, when California was a modern civilization! God speed the Americans: Therein lies our only chance."
"What!" she cried. "You--you would have the Americans? You--a Californian! But you are an Estenega; that explains everything."
"I am a Californian," he said, ignoring the scorn of the last words, "but I hope I have acquired some common-sense in roving about the world. The women of California are admirable in every way,--chaste, strong of character, industrious, devoted wives and mothers, born with sufficient capacity for small pleasures. But what are our men? Idle, thriftless, unambitious, too lazy to walk across the street, but with a horse for every step, sleeping all day in a hammock, gambling and drinking all night. They are the natural followers of a race of men who came here to force fortune out of an unbroken country with little to help them but brains and will. The great effort produced great results; therefore there is nothing for their sons to do, and they luxuriously do nothing. What will the next generation be? Our women will marry Americans,--respect for men who are men will overcome prejudice,--the crossed blood will fight for a generation or two, then a race will be born worthy of California. Why are our few great men so very great to us? What have men of exceptional talent to fight down in the Californias except the barriers to its development? In England or the United States they still would be great men,--Alvarado and Castro, at least,--but they would have to work harder."
Chonita, in spite of her disapproval and her blood, looked at him with interest. His ideas and language were strikingly unlike the sentimental rhetoric of the caballeros.
"It is as you say," she admitted; "but the Californian's highest duty is loyalty to his country. Ours is a double duty, isolated as we are on this far strip of land, away from all other civilization. We should be more contemptible than Indians if we were not true to our flag."
"No wonder that you and that famous patriot of ours, Do?a Eustaquia Ortega, are bonded friends. I doubt if you could hate as well as she. You have no such violence in your nature; you could neither love nor hate very hard. You would love (if you loved at all) with majesty and serenity, and hate with chili severity."