"If this means," said Aunt Viney, with matter-of-fact precision, "that you've been gallivanting all alone, Cecily, on that common plain, where you're likely to meet all sorts of foreigners and tramps and savages, and Heaven knows what other vermin, I shall set my face against a repet.i.tion of it. If you MUST go out, and d.i.c.k can't go with you--and I must say that even you and he going out together there at night isn't exactly the kind of American Christian example to set to our neighbors--you had better get Concepcion to go with you and take a lantern."

"But there is n.o.body one meets on the plain--at least, n.o.body likely to harm one," protested Cecily.

"Don't tell ME," said Aunt Viney decidedly; "haven't I seen all sorts of queer figures creeping along by the brink after nightfall between San Gregorio and the next rancho? Aren't they always skulking backwards and forwards to ma.s.s and aguardiente?"

"And I don't know why WE should set any example to our neighbors. We don't see much of them, or they of us."

"Of course not," returned Aunt Viney; "because all proper Spanish young ladies are shut up behind their grilles at night. You don't see THEM traipsing over the plain in the darkness, WITH or WITHOUT cavaliers!

Why, Don Rafael would lock one of HIS sisters up in a convent and consider her disgraced forever, if he heard of it."

d.i.c.k felt his cheeks burning; Cecily slightly paled. Yet both said eagerly together: "Why, what do YOU know about it, Aunty?"

"A great deal," returned Aunt Viney quietly, holding her tatting up to the light and examining the st.i.tches with a critical eye. "I've got my eyes about me, thank heaven! even if my ears don't understand the language. And there's a great deal, my dears, that you young people might learn from these Papists."

"And do you mean to say," continued d.i.c.k, with a glowing cheek and an uneasy smile, "that Spanish girls don't go out alone?"

"No young LADY goes out without her duenna," said Aunt Viney emphatically. "Of course there's the Concha variety, that go out without even stockings."

As the conversation flagged after this, and the young people once or twice yawned nervously, Aunt Viney thought they had better go to bed.

But d.i.c.k did not sleep. The beautiful face beamed out again from the darkness of his room; the light that glimmered through his deep-set curtainless windows had an odd trick of bringing out certain hanging articles, or pieces of furniture, into a resemblance to a mantled figure. The deep, velvety eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, again looked into his with amused, childlike curiosity. He scouted the harsh criticisms of Aunt Viney, even while he shrank from proving to her her mistake in the quality of his mysterious visitant. Of course she was a lady--far superior to any of her race whom he had yet met. Yet how should he find WHO she was? His pride and a certain chivalry forbade his questioning the servants--before whom it was the rule of the household to avoid all reference to their neighbors. He would make the acquaintance of the old padre--perhaps HE might talk. He would ride early along the trail in the direction of the nearest rancho,--Don Jose Amador's,--a thing he had hitherto studiously refrained from doing. It was three miles away. She must have come that distance, but not ALONE.

Doubtless she had kept her duenna in waiting in the road. Perhaps it was she who had frightened Cecily. Had Cecily told ALL she had seen? Her embarra.s.sed manner certainly suggested more than she had told. He felt himself turning hot with an indefinite uneasiness. Then he tried to compose himself. After all, it was a thing of the past. The fair unknown had bribed the duenna for once, no doubt--had satisfied her girlish curiosity--she would not come again! But this thought brought with it such a sudden sense of utter desolation, a deprivation so new and startling, that it frightened him. Was his head turned by the witcheries of some black-eyed schoolgirl whom he had seen but once? Or--he felt his cheeks glowing in the darkness--was it really a case of love at first sight, and she herself had been impelled by the same yearning that now possessed him? A delicious satisfaction followed, that left a smile on his lips as if it had been a kiss. He knew now why he had so strangely hesitated with Cecily. He had never really loved her--he had never known what love was till now!

He was up early the next morning, skimming the plain on the back of "Chu Chu," before the hacienda was stirring. He did not want any one to suspect his destination, and it was even with a sense of guilt that he dashed along the swale in the direction of the Amador rancho. A few vaqueros, an old Digger squaw carrying a basket, two little Indian acolytes on their way to ma.s.s pa.s.sed him. He was surprised to find that there were no ruts of carriage wheels within three miles of the casa, and evidently no track for carriages through the swale. SHE must have come on HORSEBACK. A broader highway, however, intersected the trail at a point where the low walls of the Amador rancho came in view. Here he was startled by the apparition of an old-fashioned family carriage drawn by two large piebald mules. But it was unfortunately closed. Then, with a desperate audacity new to his reserved nature, he ranged close beside it, and even stared in the windows. A heavily mantled old woman, whose brown face was in high contrast to her snow-white hair, sat in the back seat. Beside her was a younger companion, with the odd blonde hair and blue eyes sometimes seen in the higher Castilian type. For an instant the blue eyes caught his, half-coquettishly. But the girl was NOT at all like his mysterious visitor, and he fell, discomfited, behind.

He had determined to explain his trespa.s.s on the grounds of his neighbor, if questioned, by the excuse that he was hunting a strayed mustang. But his presence, although watched with a cold reserve by the few peons who were lounging near the gateway, provoked no challenge from them; and he made a circuit of the low adobe walls, with their barred windows and cinnamon-tiled roofs, without molestation--but equally without satisfaction. He felt he was a fool for imagining that he would see her in that way. He turned his horse towards the little Mission half a mile away. There he had once met the old padre, who spoke a picturesque but limited English; now he was only a few yards ahead of him, just turning into the church. The padre was pleased to see Don Ricardo; it was an unusual thing for the Americanos, he observed, to be up so early: for himself, he had his functions, of course. No, the ladies that the caballero had seen had not been to ma.s.s! They were Donna Maria and her daughter, going to San Gregorio. They comprised ALL the family at the rancho,--there were none others, unless the caballero, of a possibility, meant Donna Inez, a maiden aunt of sixty--an admirable woman, a saint on earth! He trusted that he would find his estray; there was no doubt a mark upon it, otherwise the plain was illimitable; there were many horses--the world was wide!

d.i.c.k turned his face homewards a little less adventurously, and it must be confessed, with a growing sense of his folly. The keen, dry morning air brushed away his fancies of the preceding night; the beautiful eyes that had lured him thither seemed to flicker and be blown out by its practical breath. He began to think remorsefully of his cousin, of his aunt,--of his treachery to that reserve which the little alien household had maintained towards their Spanish neighbors. He found Aunt Viney and Cecily at breakfast--Cecily, he thought, looking a trifle pale. Yet (or was it only his fancy?) she seemed curious about his morning ride. And he became more reticent.

"You must see a good many of our neighbors when you are out so early?"

"Why?" he asked shortly, feeling his color rise.

"Oh, because--because we don't see them at any other time."

"I saw a very nice chap--I think the best of the lot," he began, with a.s.sumed jocularity; then, seeing Cecily's eyes suddenly fixed on him, he added, somewhat lamely, "the padre! There were also two women in a queer coach."

"Donna Maria Amador, and Dona Felipa Peralta--her daughter by her first husband," said Aunt Viney quietly. "When you see the horses you think it's a circus; when you look inside the carriage you KNOW it's a funeral."

Aunt Viney did not condescend to explain how she had acquired her genealogical knowledge of her neighbor's family, but succeeded in breaking the restraint between the young people. d.i.c.k proposed a ride in the afternoon, which was cheerfully accepted by Cecily. Their intercourse apparently recovered its old frankness and freedom, marred only for a moment when they set out on the plain. d.i.c.k, really to forget his preoccupation of the morning, turned his horse's head AWAY from the trail, to ride in another direction; but Cecily oddly, and with an exhibition of caprice quite new to her, insisted upon taking the old trail. Nevertheless they met nothing, and soon became absorbed in the exercise. d.i.c.k felt something of his old tenderness return to this wholesome, pretty girl at his side; perhaps he betrayed it in his voice, or in an unconscious lingering by her bridle-rein, but she accepted it with a naive reserve which he naturally attributed to the effect of his own previous preoccupation. He bore it so gently, however, that it awakened her interest, and, possibly, her pique. Her reserve relaxed, and by the time they returned to the hacienda they had regained something of their former intimacy. The dry, incisive breath of the plains swept away the last lingering remnants of yesterday's illusions.

Under this frankly open sky, in this clear perspective of the remote Sierras, which admitted no fanciful deception of form or distance--there remained nothing but a strange incident--to be later explained or forgotten. Only he could not bring himself to talk to HER about it.

After dinner, and a decent lingering for coffee on the veranda, d.i.c.k rose, and leaning half caressingly, half mischievously, over his aunt's rocking-chair, but with his eyes on Cecily, said:--

"I've been deeply considering, dear Aunty, what you said last evening of the necessity of our offering a good example to our neighbors. Now, although Cecily and I are cousins, yet, as I am HEAD of the house, lord of the manor, and padron, according to the Spanish ideas I am her recognised guardian and protector, and it seems to me it is my positive DUTY to accompany her if she wishes to walk out this evening."

A momentary embarra.s.sment--which, however, changed quickly into an answering smile to her cousin--came over Cecily's face. She turned to her aunt.

"Well, don't go too far," said that lady quietly.

When they closed the grille behind them and stepped into the lane, Cecily shot a quick glance at her cousin.

"Perhaps you'd rather walk in the garden?"

"I? Oh, no," he answered honestly. "But"--he hesitated--"would you?"

"Yes," she said faintly.

He impulsively offered his arm; her slim hand slipped lightly through it and rested on his sleeve. They crossed the lane together, and entered the garden. A load appeared to be lifted from his heart; the moment seemed propitious,--here was a chance to recover his lost ground, to regain his self-respect and perhaps his cousin's affection. By a common instinct, however, they turned to the right, and AWAY from the stone bench, and walked slowly down the broad allee.

They talked naturally and confidingly of the days when they had met before, of old friends they had known and changes that had crept into their young lives; they spoke affectionately of the grim, lonely, but self-contained old woman they had just left, who had brought them thus again together. Cecily talked of d.i.c.k's studies, of the scientific work on which he was engaged, that was to bring him, she was sure, fame and fortune! They talked of the thoughtful charm of the old house, of its quaint old-world flavor. They spoke of the beauty of the night, the flowers and the stars, in whispers, as one is apt to do--as fearing to disturb a super-sensitiveness in nature.

They had come out later than on the previous night; and the moon, already risen above the high walls of the garden, seemed a vast silver shield caught in the interlacing tops of the old pear-trees, whose branches crossed its bright field like dark bends or bars. As it rose higher, it began to separate the lighter shrubbery, and open white lanes through the olive-trees. Damp currents of air, alternating with drier heats, on what appeared to be different levels, moved across the whole garden, or gave way at times to a breathless lull and hush of everything, in which the long rose alley seemed to be swooning in its own spices. They had reached the bottom of the garden, and had turned, facing the upper moonlit extremity and the bare stone bench. Cecily's voice faltered, her hand leaned more heavily on his arm, as if she were overcome by the strong perfume. His right hand began to steal towards hers. But she had stopped; she was trembling.

"Go on," she said in a half whisper. "Leave me a moment; I'll join you afterwards."

"You are ill, Cecily! It's those infernal flowers!" said d.i.c.k earnestly.

"Let me help you to the bench."

"No--it's nothing. Go on, please. Do! Will you go!"

She spoke with imperiousness, unlike herself. He walked on mechanically a dozen paces and turned. She had disappeared. He remembered there was a smaller gate opening upon the plain near where they had stopped. Perhaps she had pa.s.sed through that. He continued on, slowly, towards the upper end of the garden, occasionally turning to await her return. In this way he gradually approached the stone bench. He was facing about to continue his walk, when his heart seemed to stop beating. The beautiful visitor of last night was sitting alone on the bench before him!

She had not been there a moment before; he could have sworn it. Yet there was no illusion now of shade or distance. She was scarcely six feet from him, in the bright moonlight. The whole of her exquisite little figure was visible, from her l.u.s.trous hair down to the tiny, black satin, low-quartered slipper, held as by two toes. Her face was fully revealed; he could see even the few minute freckles, like powdered allspice, that heightened the pale satin sheen of her beautifully rounded cheek; he could detect even the moist shining of her parted red lips, the white outlines of her little teeth, the length of her curved lashes, and the meshes of the black lace veil that fell from the yellow rose above her ear to the black silk camisa; he noted even the thick yellow satin saya, or skirt, heavily flounced with black lace and bugles, and that it was a different dress from that worn on the preceding night, a half-gala costume, carried with the indescribable air of a woman looking her best and pleased to do so: all this he had noted, drawing nearer and nearer, until near enough to forget it all and drown himself in the depths of her beautiful eyes. For they were no longer childlike and wondering: they were glowing with expectancy, antic.i.p.ation--love!

He threw himself pa.s.sionately on the bench beside her. Yet, even if he had known her language, he could not have spoken. She leaned towards him; their eyes seemed to meet caressingly, as in an embrace. Her little hand slipped from the yellow folds of her skirt to the bench. He eagerly seized it. A subtle thrill ran through his whole frame. There was no delusion here; it was flesh and blood, warm, quivering, and even tightening round his own. He was about to carry it to his lips, when she rose and stepped backwards. He pressed eagerly forward. Another backward step brought her to the pear-tree, where she seemed to plunge into its shadow. d.i.c.k Bracy followed--and the same shadow seemed to fold them in its embrace.

He did not return to the veranda and chocolate that evening, but sent word from his room that he had retired, not feeling well.

Cecily, herself a little nervously exalted, corroborated the fact of his indisposition by telling Aunt Viney that the close odors of the rose garden had affected them both. Indeed, she had been obliged to leave before him. Perhaps in waiting for her return--and she really was not well enough to go back--he was exposed to the night air too long. She was very sorry.

Aunt Viney heard this with a slight contraction of her brows and a renewed scrutiny of her knitting; and, having satisfied herself by a personal visit to d.i.c.k's room that he was not alarmingly ill, set herself to find out what was really the matter with the young people; for there was no doubt that Cecily was in some vague way as disturbed and preoccupied as d.i.c.k. He rode out again early the next morning, returning to his studies in the library directly after breakfast; and Cecily was equally reticent, except when, to Aunt Viney's perplexity, she found excuses for d.i.c.k's manner on the ground of his absorption in his work, and that he was probably being bored by want of society. She proposed that she should ask an old schoolfellow to visit them.

"It would give d.i.c.k a change of ideas, and he would not be perpetually obliged to look so closely after me." She blushed slightly under Aunt Viney's gaze, and added hastily, "I mean, of course, he would not feel it his DUTY."

She even induced her aunt to drive with her to the old mission church, where she displayed a pretty vivacity and interest in the people they met, particularly a few youthful and picturesque caballeros. Aunt Viney smiled gravely. Was the poor child developing an unlooked-for coquetry, or preparing to make the absent-minded d.i.c.k jealous? Well, the idea was not a bad one. In the evening she astonished the two cousins by offering to accompany them into the garden--a suggestion accepted with eager and effusive politeness by each, but carried out with great awkwardness by the distrait young people later. Aunt Viney clearly saw that it was not her PRESENCE that was required. In this way two or three days elapsed without apparently bringing the relations of d.i.c.k and Cecily to any more satisfactory conclusion. The diplomatic Aunt Viney confessed herself puzzled.

One night it was very warm; the usual trade winds had died away before sunset, leaving an unwonted hush in sky and plain. There was something so portentous in this sudden withdrawal of that rude stimulus to the otherwise monotonous level, that a recurrence of such phenomena was always known as "earthquake weather." The wild cattle moved uneasily in the distance without feeding; herds of unbroken mustangs approached the confines of the hacienda in vague timorous squads. The silence and stagnation of the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really gone out of it at last; and Aunt Viney, after waiting impatiently for the young people to come in to chocolate, rose grimly, set her lips together, and went out into the lane. The gate of the rose garden opposite was open. She walked determinedly forward and entered.

In that doubly stagnant air the odor of the roses was so suffocating and overpowering that she had to stop to take breath. The whole garden, except a near cl.u.s.ter of pear-trees, was brightly illuminated by the moonlight. No one was to be seen along the length of the broad allee, strewn an inch deep with scattered red and yellow petals--colorless in the moonbeams. She was turning away, when d.i.c.k's familiar voice, but with a strange accent of entreaty in it, broke the silence. It seemed to her vaguely to come from within the pear-tree shadow.

"But we must understand one another, my darling! Tell me all. This suspense, this mystery, this brief moment of happiness, and these hours of parting and torment, are killing me!"

A slight cough broke from Aunt Viney. She had heard enough--she did not wish to hear more. The mystery was explained. d.i.c.k loved Cecily; the coyness or hesitation was not on HIS part. Some idiotic girlish caprice, quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission church, was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperating to her lover. She would have a talk with the young lady, without revealing the fact that she had overheard them. She was perhaps a little hurt that affairs should have reached this point without some show of confidence to her from the young people. d.i.c.k might naturally be reticent--but Cecily!

She did not even look towards the pear-tree, but turned and walked stiffly out of the gate. As she was crossing the lane she suddenly started back in utter dismay and consternation! For Cecily, her niece,--in her own proper person,--was actually just coming OUT OF THE HOUSE!