"But now and evermore, because I've known you, They've turned to precious pearls and limpid jade, Clear amethysts as deep as seas eternal, And heart's-blood rubies that will never fade.

"You never knew, and now you never will know; Some joys are given; mine were only lent.

You see, I do not reckon years or distance; Somewhere I know you _are_; I am content.

"I do not need your pity or your presence To bridge the widening gulf of now and then; It is enough for me to know my jewels Can never turn to wooden beads again."

Of course, to be tiresomely exact, he's _always_ known her, and she is entirely aware of his devotion, and he can reckon the time and distance quite easily with the aid of a time-table, but, as the C.E.

says, "it listens well."

Off to La Ciudad de Mexico in the morning!

_Con todo mi corazon_,

JANE.

P.S. I might remark in pa.s.sing that it's a perfectly good _corazon_ again, sane and sound and whole, and summons only dimly a memory of New York....

_Mexico City._

SARAH, my dear, I've given up trying to date my letters. I've lost count of time. We've been here for many golden days and silver nights, in a land of warm eyes and soft words, where _peons_ take off their _sombreros_ and step aside to let my Grace pa.s.s, and Murillo beggar boys are named--"Florentino Buenaventura, awaiting your commands!"

We sight-see so ardently that lazy little Lupe says she is "tired until her bones!" and when she surrenders, we go on alone, the C.E.

and I. (Oh, yes, the Budders are still with us, but they are keener on facts than fancies, and we deign but seldom to go with them and improve our minds.) Yesterday, however, we consented to see Diaz'

model prison. My dear, after seeing how the people live at large, one is convinced that here the wages of sin are sanitation and education.

I should think ex-convicts would be hugely in demand for all sorts of positions. In the parlor we were fascinated with a display of the skulls of prisoners who had been executed there. I saw one small, round, innocent-looking one which couldn't possibly have ever contained a harsh thought, I was sure, and I indignantly read the tag to see what he had been martyred for. Sarah, the busy boy had done twenty-one ladies to death!

We listen to melting music in the Alameda, we ride in the fashion parade in the Calle San Francisco, we drive out along the beautiful Paseo de la Reforma and drink chocolate in the shadow of the Castle of Chapultepec--chocolate made with cinnamon and so rich and sweet it almost bends the spoon to stir it. Miss Vail remembers with difficulty that she is the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time, a self-supporting young business woman who beats bright thoughts from a typewriter four earnest hours per diem ... or that she was....

_Hoy_--to-day, is very satisfying; I forget _ayer_--yesterday; _Manana_--to-morrow, may never come!

Juana.

_Christmas Eve, Cuernavaca._

_Felisces Pascuas_, Sally dear! You in the snow and I in fairyland!

It's a comic opera Christmas here, but a very fetching one,--the pretty processions of singing children through the streets, the gay, grotesque _pinatis_--huge paper dolls filled with _dulces_, the childish and merry little people, the color, the music, the smile and the sob of it all!

I wish I could have little Dolores Tristeza with me. I sent her a box of delights.

My p.u.s.s.y willow girl is star-eyed over a telegram and my much more than civil engineer has told me what he wants for Christmas. If he had told me on Fifth Avenue or at home, on Wetherby Ridge, I should have said at once that I was sorry, and I liked him immensely, and so on, but--but here, in Cuernavaca, in the Borda Gardens, beside the crumbling pinky palace, where the ghosts of Maximilian and Carlotta walk at the full of the moon, when he told me that all his days were wooden beads before I came, and--I don't know, Sally! I don't know!

New York seems very far away ... Rodney Harrison and my St. Michael seem palely unreal.... Can it be possible, in these gay little weeks, that, as Lupe would say, "I have arrive'" to love this boy?

Distractedly,

JANE.

CHAPTER XVI

_Orizaba._

MY DEAR SALLY,

In the market place to-day I found such a bored old bear dancing for a bored crowd. I've never seen anything quite so tired and patient as his eyes. His little old master was half asleep but he whacked his tambourine and whined his mournful song without a pause. I left Lupe and the C.E. and went out and patted the bear and asked the man (I am as handy as that with my Spanish!) how much he earned in a day. Less than fifteen cents in our money! Well, I asked him if I could buy the bear a week's vacation if I paid him three weeks' earnings in advance. He accepted thankfully and I believe he will keep his word, being just as bored as the bear. The old beast came down on his four feet with a gusty sigh and they padded peacefully away. The crowd thought me mildly mad and the C.E. was a little annoyed with me. He said he would gladly have attended to it for me if I had asked him.

I answered him very impertinently--something Lupe had taught me--"_Cuando tu vas, ya yo vengo!_" which means in crude English, "By the time you get started I'll be on the way back!"

I purr with pleasure when I think of the bear!

JANE.

P.S. One hopes it isn't a habit with him ... being a little annoyed....

_Cordoba._

Sally, dear, this isn't a comic opera country at all, but a land of grim melodrama; stark tragedy.

We're here in the prettiest city, on the edge of the _tierra caliente_, but it's been a horrid day. It started wrong. An unsavory but beautiful cherub of eight or so, smoking a cigarette, tried to sell me a baby lizard. You remember how I've always loved lizards, but I couldn't take it on a day's sight-seeing so I gave him a copper and refused. He said in liquid Spanish, "So, Your Grace will not buy my little lizard? Very well! Behold!"--and before my horrified eyes he held it to his cigarette and burned it to death before I could jump out of the machine and get to him. I suppose I'm tired out with all this rushing about, for I just went to pieces over it, and when Lupe said sympathetically, "Oh, deed you _want_ it?" it made me turn on her. I made the rest go on the drive without me and I sat down in the Plaza alone to think things over. There was a little old fountain with a gurgling drip, and I rested in the ragged shade of the banana trees and heard two hours tinkled from the crumbling, creamy-colored cathedral, and came gradually to the point of understanding that the boy was just as much an object of pity as the lizard. I knew that Michael Daragh would say--there--that's the first time, even to myself----

Well, I sat there, cooled and calmed, and presently I heard something and looked up to see two soldiers on horseback bringing a prisoner.

His arms were bound behind him, and great, rough ropes ran from their saddles to his neck and the skin was rubbed raw. The horses were steaming; they must have come fast. Another soldier went on to report or something and told them to wait there, and they were halted right by me. The man's mouth was open and his swollen tongue hanging out and he was panting just like a dog. He gasped, "_Agua! Por Dios--agua!_" but his guards just laughed and shouted to the _pulqueria_ across the street, and a boy came out and brought them drinks. Their backs were toward me, and I got up without making a sound and crept to the fountain and filled the big iron cup to the brim and held it till he'd drained every drop, and then let him have a little more, and then I dipped my handkerchief in the water and put it in his mouth. And just at that very moment--of course!--the guards turned round and saw me, _and_ the Budders and the C.E. and Lupe drove up!

My dear Sarah, they very nearly arrested _me_! The man is, they claim, a dangerous revolutionist, and I was giving aid to him. Lupe was shaking like a leaf and the C.E. was white as paper, but between them they got me off.

I don't care! I'd do it again!

It seems the whole country is simmering and seething in revolution; old Diaz' throne is tottering under him. Lupe was tearful over a wailing letter from her Emilio, begging her to return, and the C.E.

is recalled to his mine, and the Budders are a little nervous and anxious to hurry northward, so we're off for Guanajuato to-morrow, but I'm not very keen about it.

I'm not very keen about anything.

Drearily,

J.

_Two Hours Later._

P.S. We took a little _paseo_ in the moonlight and things looked brighter in the dark! The only reason the C.E. gets a little annoyed is that he cannot bear to see me in distress or danger. He was very nice about promising to help me smooth the path for _Romeo_ and _Juliet_.

We pa.s.s through Guadalajara and I'll run in to see Dolores Tristeza.

J.