Ramona [79]
"Ah!" said the Senora again, startled, gratified that Felipe had so promptly seconded her action, but sorry that Alessandro had gone. "Ah, I did not know whether you would think it best to discharge him at once or not; I told him he must answer to you. I did not know but you might devise some measures by which he could be retained on the estate."
Felipe stared. Could he believe his ears? This did not sound like the relentless displeasure he had expected. Could Ramona have been dreaming? In his astonishment, he did not weigh his mother's words carefully; he did not carry his conjecture far enough; he did not stop to make sure that retaining Alessandro on the estate might not of necessity bode any good to Ramona; but with his usual impetuous ardor, sanguine, at the first glimpse of hope, that all was well, he exclaimed joyfully, "Ah, dear mother, if that could only be done, all would be well;" and, never noting the expression of his mother's face, nor pausing to take breath, he poured out all he thought and felt on the subject.
"That is just what I have been hoping for ever since I saw that he and Ramona were growing so fond of each other. He is a splendid fellow, and the best hand we have ever had on the place. All the men like him; he would make a capital overseer; and if we put him in charge of the whole estate, there would not be any objection to his marrying Ramona. That would give them a good living here with us."
"Enough!" cried the Senora, in a voice which fell on Felipe's ears like a voice from some other world,-- so hollow, so strange. He stopped speaking, and uttered an ejaculation of amazement. At the first words he had uttered, the Senora had fixed her eyes on the floor,-- a habit of hers when she wished to listen with close attention. Lifting her eyes now, fixing them full on Felipe, she regarded him with a look which not all his filial reverence could bear without resentment. It was nearly as scornful as that with which she had regarded Ramona. Felipe colored.
"Why do you look at me like that, mother?" he exclaimed. "What have I done?"
The Senora waved her hand imperiously. "Enough!" she reiterated. "Do not say any more. I wish to think for a few moments;" and she fixed her eyes on the floor again.
Felipe studied her countenance. A more nearly rebellious feeling than he had supposed himself capable of slowly arose in his heart. Now he for the first time perceived what terror his mother must inspire in a girl like Ramona.
"Poor little one!" he thought. "If my mother looked at her as she did at me just now, I wonder she did not die."
A great storm was going on in the Senora's bosom. Wrath against Ramona was uppermost in it. In addition to all else, the girl had now been the cause, or at least the occasion, of Felipe's having, for the first time in his whole life, angered her beyond her control.
"As if I had not suffered enough by reason of that creature," she thought bitterly to herself, "without her coming between me and Felipe!"
But nothing could long come between the Senora and Felipe. Like a fresh lava-stream flowing down close on the track of its predecessor, came the rush of the mother's passionate love for her
son close on the passionate anger at his words.
When she lifted her eyes they were full of tears, which it smote Felipe to see. As she gazed at him, they rolled down her cheeks, and she said in trembling tones: "Forgive me, my child; I had not thought anything could make me thus angry with you. That shameless creature is costing us too dear. She must leave the house."
Felipe's heart gave a bound; Ramona had not been mistaken, then. A bitter shame seized him at his mother's cruelty. But her tears made him tender; and it was in a gentle, even pleading voice that he replied: "I do not see, mother, why you call Ramona shameless. There is nothing wrong in her loving Alessandro."
"I found her in his arms!" exclaimed the Senora.
"I know," said Felipe; "Alessandro told me that he had just at that instant told her he loved her, and she had said she loved him, and