The Splendid Idle Forties | Page 6

Many
rode with you."
"I mean him who rode at my right, the winner of the races, Vicente, son
of my old friend Juan Bautista de la Vega y Arillaga, of Los Angeles."
"It may be. I think I saw a strange face."
"He saw yours, Doña Ysabel, and is looking upon you now from the
corridor without, although the fog is heavy about him. Cannot you see
him--that dark shadow by the pillar?"
Ysabel never went through the graceful evolutions of the contradanza
as she did that night. Her supple slender body curved and swayed and
glided; her round arms were like lazy snakes uncoiling; her exquisitely
poised head moved in perfect concord with her undulating hips. Her
eyes grew brighter, her lips redder. The young men who stood near
gave as loud a vent to their admiration as if she had been dancing El
Son alone on the floor. But the man without made no sign.
After the dance was over, General Castro led her to her dueña, and
handing her a guitar, begged a song.

She began a light love-ballad, singing with the grace and style of her
Spanish blood; a little mocking thing, but with a wild break now and
again. As she sang, she fixed her eyes coquettishly on the adoring face
of Guido Cabañares, who stood beside her, but saw every movement of
the form beyond the window. Don Guido kept his ardent eyes riveted
upon her but detected no wandering in her glances. His lips trembled as
he listened, and once he brushed the tears from his eyes. She gave him
a little cynical smile, then broke her song in two. The man on the
corridor had vaulted through the window.
Ysabel, clinching her hands the better to control her jumping nerves,
turned quickly to Cabañares, who had pressed behind her, and was
pouring words into her ear.
"Ysabel! Ysabel! hast thou no pity? Dost thou not see that I am fit to
set the world on fire for love of thee? The very water boils as I drink
it--"
She interrupted him with a scornful laugh, the sharper that her voice
might not tremble. "Bring me my pearls. What is love worth when it
will not grant one little desire?"
He groaned. "I have found a vein of gold on my rancho. I can pick the
little shining pieces out with my fingers. I will have them beaten into a
saddle for thee--"
But she had turned her back flat upon him, and was making a deep
courtesy to the man whom General Castro presented.
"I appreciate the honour of your acquaintance," she murmured
mechanically.
"At your feet, señorita," said Don Vicente.
The art of making conversation had not been cultivated among the
Californians, and Ysabel plied her large fan with slow grace, at a loss
for further remark, and wondering if her heart would suffocate her. But
Don Vicente had the gift of words.

"Señorita," he said, "I have stood in the chilling fog and felt the warmth
of your lovely voice at my heart. The emotions I felt my poor tongue
cannot translate. They swarm in my head like a hive of puzzled bees;
but perhaps they look through my eyes," and he fixed his powerful and
penetrating gaze on Ysabel's green depths.
A waltz began, and he took her in his arms without asking her
indulgence, and regardless of the indignation of the mob of men about
her. Ysabel, whose being was filled with tumult, lay passive as he held
her closer than man had ever dared before.
"I love you," he said, in his harsh voice. "I wish you for my wife. At
once. When I saw you to-day standing with a hundred other beautiful
women, I said: 'She is the fairest of them all. I shall have her.' And I
read the future in"--he suddenly dropped the formal "you"--"in thine
eyes, cariña. Thy soul sprang to mine. Thy heart is locked in my heart
closer, closer than my arms are holding thee now."
The strength of his embrace was violent for a moment; but Ysabel
might have been cut from marble. Her body had lost its swaying grace;
it was almost rigid. She did not lift her eyes. But De la Vega was not
discouraged.
The music finished, and Ysabel was at once surrounded by a
determined retinue. This intruding Southerner was welcome to the
honours of the race-field, but the Star of Monterey was not for him. He
smiled as he saw the menace of their eyes.
"I would have her," he thought, "if they were a regiment of
Castros--which they are not." But he had not armed himself against
diplomacy.
"Señor Don Vicente de la Vega y Arillaga," said Don Guido Cabañares,
who had been selected as