Chapter 16

"Don't wreck your life and happiness before it is too late. You must tire of her as inevitably as you will tire of this life, and what then? Can't you see that, when you have exhausted the glamour, and the fascination of things is gone, she would no longer be a companion to you? The difference between you--your lives, your world and hers, is too great. It is insurmountable--impassable! What can she know of the world which you and I know, to which you belong? Of another race, another blood, she must ever remain an alien, a thing apart from yourself; there can never be a true affinity between you. She is a savage--an aborigine sprung from the soil. The tinsel and veneer of civilization which she has acquired doesn't change her and can't endure. She is still a savage in spite of it, the product of savage ancestry living close to the soil. The simplicity and glamour and freedom of this life casts a spell over one and attracts one of your adventurous nature, sated with the pleasures and luxuries of our world, but will the spell last? Once you have exhausted the simple, elemental joys of such a life, it must become irksome, mere animal existence, unbearable, positive boredom to you. That in her which attracts you now must inevitably become commonplace in time and repel you. You could not endure that, Jack; you who are evolved through thousands of generations from a higher, superior race. Your reason and instinct must tell you that.

"Jack!" she cried in a fresh outburst, "we were made for one another! How can she, an Indian, the product of savagery, understand you who are of a different race, the product of civilization? Your soul can never find the full response in hers that it can in mine. I know I was foolish--call it willful rather than foolish--the instinct that is born in me to command. I should not have let you go. I should have consented to share the life you proposed, but I did not believe you were in earnest; I did not think it would last. Besides, how could you have expected me to understand? It was too much; you had no right to ask it of me then. I thought, of course, you would come back to me again, Jack; I waited for that. Can't you understand? But you didn't come back, and I repented of my mistake a thousand times. We all make mistakes, Jack!"

His manhood revolted against being compelled to listen to her confession, her pleading. It was undignified, cowardly. It disgusted him and he hated himself for it, but what could he do?

"Don't say that, Blanch," he answered gently. "It is I who should ask forgiveness. I know it was too much to ask you to share such a life with me, but I did not realize it at the time. I wronged you, I know. I would gladly make reparation if I knew how."

"Oh! none of that virtuous, good-humored acquiescence, Jack! I want you to forget everything, all but the days before it happened, when you loved me--when you swore that your love was as constant as the stars! Have you forgotten your oath? To be true to yourself, Jack, you must forget!" She paused. It was the first frank utterance she had made since her coming; and, for the time being, she seemed to have forgotten her resentment toward him.

"I have not changed, Jack," she went on. "I am the same as then; I only did not understand you. How could I have guessed that which lay buried within you, those latent ideals and conceptions of life which you yourself were ignorant of? But I understand you now, Jack. It was the foolish conceit of the girl's heart that caused me to forget what I owed you; but now it is the woman who speaks, who bares her soul to you, brimming full of love and passion and tenderness for the man she loves and longs to protect--the woman who loves as the girl could never have loved, Jack."

The light that shone from her eyes bespoke the voice of her conscience; told him that she at least spoke the truth. Never had she appeared more beautiful, more fascinating and alluring than at this moment, as she stood before him, flushed and radiant and trembling with passion, confused and indignant and ashamed; the woman rebelling within her at being thus forced to lay bare her soul, make confession before the man she loved. It was cruel and he knew it. Her words were like knife-thrusts at his heart, filling his soul to its depths with sympathy and compassion for her, and bitterness and loathing for himself.

The vision of yesterday with its gay scenes which he had cast aside, rose before him again. Its seductive allurements swept over him with redoubled force like a great compelling wave, filled with music and light and laughter, the false, seductive charms of which their present surroundings knew naught. The magic of her voice, her face, her touch had lost none of its charm. He felt her fascination still, in spite of himself and the bitterness of former days which he had cherished in his heart against her. The lure of the old life was strong upon him. He felt the hot blood rush to his face and heart; his being surged. She had been a part of his life, they had grown up together, and do what he would, her presence brought him face to face again with certain realities, with the old life which he thought was dead but which was not yet buried. When he looked upon her, he heard the old familiar sounds of the sea, of music and siren-voices of civilizations in their decay--breathed again the intoxicating atmosphere of that exotic, voluptuous, sensuous existence in which he had been reared and had lived, and with which he was saturated and from which he was striving to escape. But when he thought of Chiquita, he heard the murmur of forests and waters and saw the broad expanse of the plains and the wild crags and peaks that rear their heads heavenward, above which the eagles soar. Nature beckoned with widespread arms to her child to come--the manhood within him cried for release, for the recognition of the individual's right to self-assertion.

Poets have sung of the raptures of first love, but was Blanch really his first love? The true first love is only that man or woman who can cause one to forget oneself. Somewhere deep down in our souls there's a something which sleeps until that hour when it suddenly bursts into flame, as it were, and the new man is born within us; and this is what had happened to him, though all unknown to himself, at the time when he first beheld Chiquita riding alone in the hills. In an instant his soul was aflame. He thrilled at the sight of her as she turned and rode away in the dusk, and felt like crying out to her to stop; that she was his, that she had been his from the beginning of time and he likewise hers; that he had been searching for her down the ages and had found her at last. All this and much more flashed through his mind as he gazed upon the beautiful vision of Blanch before him and felt the charm of her presence slowly creeping over him and fastening itself upon him in spite of his resistance like the subtle, mysterious influence of music or rich old wine.

For some time he seemed uncertain how to act or what to say. She noted it. His hesitation inspired her with fresh courage, causing her face and eyes to shine with the radiance of hope, dazzlingly beautiful. Her breath came quick and fast as she drew nearer to him and then seemed to cease altogether as she waited for his answer. All this he too noticed, and felt himself weakening under her spell. The suspense was as terrible for him as for her. A thousand memories rose from out the past and began pulling at his heart-strings. Inch by inch he felt himself slowly slipping back into the old life again, like a boat that has slipped her moorings and glides silently and almost imperceptibly out into the easy-flowing current. The struggle grew more intense within him as the minutes passed. Great beads of perspiration broke out upon his brow as he listened to those voices whose sweetness and intensity increased with his hesitancy--those voices beneath whose charm and spell the strongest men have succumbed in the past.

"Blanch," he said at last, hoarsely and almost in a whisper, "it takes a better man than I to say 'no' to you, and I don't say it. But I have changed." The mere fact of speaking and the sound of his voice seemed to recall him to himself, to the realization of where he was and what he was doing. He felt that he was still master of himself and his confidence slowly returned. "I know you can't understand," he continued. "But somehow, I seem to have grown beyond you."

"Jack," she said, drawing still closer and laying her hand upon his arm and looking up into his face, "I know you have had more experience than I have had, but don't imagine that you have grown beyond me. Your ideas have caused me to think. I, too, have grown since we last parted. If you can give up the world, so can I. If you will not return again to the world with me, I'll remain here with you. I'll do anything you say!" she cried in passionate surrender. "My body is soft perhaps in comparison to hers, but I'm strong. I'll soon be as strong as you or she and be all the more to you, infinitely more to you than she can ever be. I know I did you a great wrong in the past, Jack, but let me make up for it now. It is my privilege, my debt to you, and your duty to let me do it. You have no right to break your promise to me, Jack. You can't. Your manhood must tell you that it is as sacred now as the day you gave it to me, and I hold you to it. I'll show you a love you have never known--can never know without me!" She drew still closer, laying her other hand upon his shoulder caressingly; her arm almost encircling his neck. He felt her warm, fragrant breath upon his lips and the thrilling, magnetic touch of her body, vibrating and pulsating with passion and emotion. How soft and voluptuous and tempting and alluring that body and presence were! It was as though the spices and perfumes and sunshine of far away, mythical Cathay had suddenly descended upon him and enveloped him.

"Jack," she continued, "we have always been comrades, pals; we were made for one another! We are one in thought now as much as we ever were--more than we ever have been!"

He knew this to be false; that he possessed a grip on life which she did not; that he had passed far beyond her since they had last parted. She had had her opportunity and had thrown it away. It was too late. She could not follow him now, she had missed the psychological moment. Even had she cast her lot with his in the beginning, he knew that she never could have followed him. She was immeshed; her feet were caught in the net. The blandishments of life had taken too deep root in her soul for her to cast them forth as he had done. And yet his conscience smote him for her sake, for what she suffered, that she was thus forced to humiliate herself before him. Sentiment and old memories surged up within him and urged him to keep her. What, after all, did it matter where or how they lived? The world would go on its way the same as it had always done; it didn't wish to be reformed and wasn't worth reforming.

"Take her! take her!" cried those voices more persistently than ever. "Don't be a fool and miss this opportunity which, once gone, shall pass out of your life forever. She's as beautiful and as brilliant as the other woman; one of your own race and, after all, will wear as well. Besides, you know her and you don't know the other woman, and if disappointed in the latter--what then? Take her!"

The vision of Glaire's wonderful conception, "The Lost Illusions," rose before him. He saw again that exquisite figure of the Egyptian, strong and sensitive, in the prime of manhood, seated upon the shore of the Nile, watching the bark of destiny laden with the fair illusions of youth, draw slowly away from him and grow fainter and fainter in the soft, mellow light of age, as it floated away on the evening tide of life. He, too, stood in the prime of manhood. Was this to be his end, mocked and laughed at by fate--the price he must pay for daring to lift his eyes from the dust to the stars to fulfill the dream of the ages? God knew how he had fought against the invisible power that had driven him on step by step to his present state. He looked down into the beautiful upturned face of the woman before him whom he had known so long, whom he had loved and adored; gazed deep into those soft, azure eyes, limpid as two crystal pools, saw those full red upturned lips waiting to be kissed--kissed. Again her lips parted.

"Jack, Jack, Sweetheart, I'm waiting--" she murmured softly, encircling his neck completely with her arm and drawing his face gently down to her own. Just then the rhythmic silvery whir of wings caused them to look upward. Through the boughs of the tree they saw the indistinct form of a white dove that fluttered overhead for an instant and then was gone. At the same moment Captain Forest distinctly recognized the scent of Castilian roses, as though their fragrance had been wafted full in his face by a breeze, and yet there was no breeze, nor were there any roses close at hand; the season of roses had passed.

No man could have resisted for long the fascinations of a woman like Blanch Lennox if she chose to make love to him. It was the sound of those wings and the fragrance of the roses that upheld Captain Forest's resolution; especially the fragrance of the roses. Whence it came or how it originated, who could say? For it came and passed like a mere breath. Perhaps the invisible angel who, it is said, presides over the destiny of the individual, caused it; for with it flashed the vision of Chiquita before his eyes as he had seen her on that day in the garden among the roses and had silently watched her from the back of his horse and breathed deep drafts of the flowery fragrance. The same subtle, invisible something that has changed the destiny of individuals and of nations through all the ages, caused him to remember, recalled him to himself. The manhood surged up within him, asserting its supremacy, and he drew himself up with a sudden impulse. She noted the change, and in a fierce, passionate voice, almost of terror, cried: "Jack, you are mine, you have always been mine! I will not give you up--I claim my own!" and she flung her arms passionately about his neck in an endeavor to draw his lips down to her own.

"I can't--I can't do it, Blanch!" he said, and shook himself free. With a cry, terrible in its intensity and despair, she sank across the table.

XXVIII

Pale and trembling and humiliated, Blanch pulled herself together with an effort and stood for some time as one dazed where the Captain had left her. Then, she remembered, she had smiled and bowed absently to the men and women in the _patio_ on the way back to her room, where she flung herself down upon the couch in a frenzy, burying her face in the cushions; her frame shaking with passionate, convulsive sobs as she writhed in paroxysms of untold grief and pain.

He had refused her, dared to refuse her--her! She had failed! Was this, then, the end, the reward for righteous ambition, conscientious endeavor? For years she had worked and schemed for the realization of her ideal, and this was the end. How proud she always had been of him, and how perfectly her beauty and brilliancy would have crowned his career--their lives! And now, when ambition's goal was attained, that rare cup of earthly joys of which few men drink, had been rudely dashed from her lips.

So this was the reward that had been reserved for her who had been endowed with wealth and position, and who was the fairest and best this civilization could produce? Fate had been kind to her merely in order that she might realize to the utmost the bitterness and emptiness of life.

Life--what did it mean, what did it hold for her now? She knew as well as Captain Forest did that, strong though she was, she was nevertheless too weak to share with him the life he had chosen. Civilization and culture had prepared her for everything but that; the one vital essential which nature alone can give to man was lacking. After all she was but a poor, helpless creature, incapable of meeting and being satisfied with the simple demands occasioned by the natural conditions of man's surroundings. Neither could she return to the old life again, now that it was shorn of its vital interest, and year after year cast her bread upon the waters in the uncertain pursuit of happiness, only to reap the harvest of dead-sea fruit that is ever borne in on the shallow tides of worldliness.

She recognized in herself the victim of a system of lies and frauds, a world of artificiality, deceit and tawdry tinsel, a life which, in spite of the good it contains, makes weaklings of men. Thanks to her bringing-up, the sunland of love, that valley of the earthly paradise, was closed to her forever. She cursed this world of hypocrisy and deception and all it contained--her friends and acquaintances and the memory of her father and mother, who unabashed, had perverted the pure, unsullied gaze of the child, directed its steps in the paths trodden by its degenerate forefathers, taught it to regard falsehood in the light of truth.

Let the world cry out in protest--say they did their best. The world lies, and knows it lies. They did not do their best. They followed the dictates of selfishness, despicable, inherent weakness. But why had this come to her who had been a willing instrument, who had lent herself to the dictates of this world and who, of all others, was the most fit to grace it?

"I curse you--curse you!" she cried aloud, springing to her feet in a fresh paroxysm and frenzy, flinging her clenched hands aloft, her features livid with rage. But what did her mingled transports of grief and pain and anger avail her? There was no redress, no appeal from the decision of destiny. It was fate, and she had been singled out for the sacrifice. Again she cried out in agony of heart and soul. Had she been strong like the other woman, he must have loved her--his love never could have died!

The thought of Chiquita brought her to herself in a measure, and as she slowly began to pace the floor, Don Felipe's words came back to her. If she did not possess Jack, no other woman should. Besides, she knew what he did not know--that even if he wished to, he could not marry Chiquita. A grim smile flitted across her countenance as the knowledge of this fact flashed through her mind, the only ray of light in the chaos into which she had been plunged by that misguided, luckless decision on her part--her refusal to follow the Captain while he was still hers.

She knew it was purely revenge that had prompted Don Felipe to run her rival's secret to earth, and she despised him for it. It was not so with her--the thought of revenge had not entered into her calculations. But neither Chiquita nor the Captain would escape. It was justice, nothing more nor less; for they, too, like her, stood before the tribunal of destiny and must bow to its decrees the same as she had been forced to bow to them. Yes, she would give the signal to Don Felipe that night; it was the only right thing to do.

She was calmer now, and when Rosita knocked lightly at her door and entered the room to assist her in dressing for the evening, no one would have suspected the ache at her heart or the storm-swept soul which her calm exterior concealed.

XXIX

Padre Antonio sat before the open window in his living-room in a large, comfortable chair, enjoying the beauty of the evening and the fragrance of the last flowers in the garden, waiting for Chiquita to complete her toilet.

It was one of those soft, balmy autumnal evenings, and gave promise of a night of majesty and serenity when the moon rose in her full glory to hold her silent watch over the earth once more. It was sweet to live on such a day as this, when all the world seemed at peace; and what a perfect night for the _fandango_. Presently the sound of light footsteps and the soft rustle of a dress interrupted the train of his thoughts, causing him to turn from the window to Chiquita, who, attired in her ball dress, entered the room and paused before him.

There was not an inharmonious touch in her attire of soft creamy satin and lace, richly embroidered with golden flowers. Delicate filmy threads of gold intersected the heavy white Valenciennes lace mantilla attached to her high silver comb, etched in gold and studded with diminutive diamonds, which sparkled in the light like dew in the sunshine. Her white satin slippers and silk stockings, like her corsage and _saya_, were also delicately worked in gold. A sheaf of golden poppies adorned one side of her head, nestling close down upon her neck and shoulder in the folds of her jet black hair. She presented a truly striking appearance, and Padre Antonio gazed long and silently at her, his keen eyes scanning her critically from head to foot in an effort to detect a fault.

How he loved his little girl! It almost seemed as though she were endowed with something more than earthly beauty. In her the strength and grace of the deer and panther were blended with the ethereal delicacy and beauty of the flower. But it was her face that bespoke the luminous nature of the soul which dwelt within her. So close was the bond of sympathy and mutual understanding between them, that she instinctively half divined his thoughts and it gave her courage.

"Will I do, Padre _mio_?" she asked with a slight hesitancy, smiling and looking down at him inquiringly. The question was so characteristic of her that he could only smile in response.

"Chiquita _mia_--there's one thing lacking," he said at length, the far-away, dreamy look fading from his eyes.

"Something lacking?" she repeated in surprise, turning and casting an involuntary glance at the small mirror on the wall opposite in a vain effort to catch a full view of herself.

"Yes, Señorita," he answered knowingly, almost mysteriously. "But it's not your fault. It sometimes takes the discerning eye of a man to perceive what a woman's toilet lacks."

What can it be, she asked herself, looking wonderingly and inquiringly up into his face, and then turning to follow him with her gaze as, without further comment, he left the room and slowly ascended the stairs to his study on the floor above. He paused for an instant on entering the room, then walked straight to his desk at the other end; a large upright piece of furniture of ancient pine made in the mission style and stained dark to represent oak, which, owing to its age, it closely resembled. Pulling out the middle drawer, he pushed back a secret panel on the inside, disclosing an opening in the back of the desk from which he drew a small sandalwood box which, on being opened, contained a silver casket, richly chased and of an antique design.

Years had elapsed since he last looked upon it, and he regarded it curiously for some moments as he held it in his hands. Then setting it down upon the desk, he turned the small key which unlocked it and raised the lid, disclosing its contents, which consisted of a fan, a bracelet of six strands of large pearls with a diamond clasp in the shape of a crown, and a long, magnificent necklace of still larger pearls, also composed of six strands, like the bracelet, and a large diamond slide also in the shape of a crown. The fan was one of those exquisite, daintily hand-painted French creations of ivory, lace and vellum of a century gone by. On one of the outer ribs was also a small diamond crown and on the other was traced a name in letters of gold. A delicate fragrance like that of withered rose leaves escaped the casket, and, as he silently contemplated its contents, his gaze fell upon the name on the fan--Chiquita Pia Maria Roxan Concepcion Salvatore--the name was much longer, but his eyes dimmed--he could read no further.