Remember the Alamo [18]
she is irresistible in her Castilian dress. Bah!
those French frocks are enough to drive a man a mile away.
I can almost forgive her now. Had she worn the French frock
I would not have forgiven her. I would never have yielded
again, no, not even if the Senorita Antonia should offer me
her scarlet Indian shawl worked in gold. I was always a
fool--Holy Mother forgive me! Well, then; I used to have my
own lovers--plenty of them--handsome young arrieros and
rancheros: there was Tadeo, a valento of the first class: and
Buffa--and--well, I will sleep; they do not remember me, I
dare say; and I have forgotten their names."
In the mean time the sisters sat down beneath a great fig-
tree. No sunshine, no shower, could penetrate its thick
foliage. The wide space beneath the spreading branches was a
little parlor, cool and sweet, and full of soft, green lights,
and the earthy smell of turf, and the wandering scents of the
garden.
Isabel's eyes shone with an incomparable light. She was pale,
but exquisitely beautiful, and even her hands and feet
expressed the idea of expectation. Antonia had a piece of
needlework in her hand. She affected the calmness she did
not feel, for her heart was trembling for the tender little
heart beating with so much love and anxiety beside her.
But Isabel's divination, however arrived at, was not at fault.
In a few moments Don Luis lightly leaped the hedge, and
without a moment's hesitation sought the shadow of the fig-
tree. As he approached, Antonia looked at him with a new
interest. It was not only that he loved Isabel, but that
Isabel loved him. She had given him sympathy before, now she
gave him a sister's affection.
"How handsome he is!" she thought. "How gallant he looks in
his velvet and silver and embroidered jacket! And how eager
are his steps! And how joyful his face! He is the kind of
Romeo that Shakespeare dreamed about! Isabel is really an
angel to him. He would really die for her. What has this
Spanish knight of the sixteenth century to do in Texas in the
nineteenth century?"
He answered her mental question in his own charming way. He
was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so
compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the
favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the
excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she
would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by so
doing, would protect them from intrusion.
One whole hour! Isabel had thought the promise a perfect
magnificence of opportunity{.??} But how swiftly it went.
Luis had not told her the half of his love and his hopes. He
had been forced to speak of politics and business, and every
such word was just so many stolen from far sweeter words--
words that fell like music from his lips, and were repeated
with infinite power from his eyes. Low words, that had the
pleading of a thousand voices in them; words full of melody,
thrilling with romance; poetical, and yet real as the sunshine
around them.
In lovers of a colder race, bound by conventional ties, and a
dress rigorously divested of every picturesque element, such
wooing might have appeared ridiculous; but in Don Luis, the
most natural thing about it was its extravagance. When he
knelt at the feet of his beloved and kissed her hands, the
action was the unavoidable outcome of his temperament. When
he said to her, "Angel mio! you are the light of my
darkness, the perfume of all flowers that bloom for me, the
love of my loves, my life, my youth, my lyre, my star, had I
a thousand souls with which to love, I would give them all to
you!" he believed every word he uttered, and he uttered every
word with the passion of a believer.
He stirred into life also in the heart of Isabel a love as
living as his own. In that hour she stepped outside all of
her childhood's immaturities. She became a woman. She
accepted with joyful tears a woman's lot of love and sorrow.
She said to Antonia:
"Luis was in my heart before; now, I
those French frocks are enough to drive a man a mile away.
I can almost forgive her now. Had she worn the French frock
I would not have forgiven her. I would never have yielded
again, no, not even if the Senorita Antonia should offer me
her scarlet Indian shawl worked in gold. I was always a
fool--Holy Mother forgive me! Well, then; I used to have my
own lovers--plenty of them--handsome young arrieros and
rancheros: there was Tadeo, a valento of the first class: and
Buffa--and--well, I will sleep; they do not remember me, I
dare say; and I have forgotten their names."
In the mean time the sisters sat down beneath a great fig-
tree. No sunshine, no shower, could penetrate its thick
foliage. The wide space beneath the spreading branches was a
little parlor, cool and sweet, and full of soft, green lights,
and the earthy smell of turf, and the wandering scents of the
garden.
Isabel's eyes shone with an incomparable light. She was pale,
but exquisitely beautiful, and even her hands and feet
expressed the idea of expectation. Antonia had a piece of
needlework in her hand. She affected the calmness she did
not feel, for her heart was trembling for the tender little
heart beating with so much love and anxiety beside her.
But Isabel's divination, however arrived at, was not at fault.
In a few moments Don Luis lightly leaped the hedge, and
without a moment's hesitation sought the shadow of the fig-
tree. As he approached, Antonia looked at him with a new
interest. It was not only that he loved Isabel, but that
Isabel loved him. She had given him sympathy before, now she
gave him a sister's affection.
"How handsome he is!" she thought. "How gallant he looks in
his velvet and silver and embroidered jacket! And how eager
are his steps! And how joyful his face! He is the kind of
Romeo that Shakespeare dreamed about! Isabel is really an
angel to him. He would really die for her. What has this
Spanish knight of the sixteenth century to do in Texas in the
nineteenth century?"
He answered her mental question in his own charming way. He
was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so
compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the
favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the
excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she
would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by so
doing, would protect them from intrusion.
One whole hour! Isabel had thought the promise a perfect
magnificence of opportunity{.??} But how swiftly it went.
Luis had not told her the half of his love and his hopes. He
had been forced to speak of politics and business, and every
such word was just so many stolen from far sweeter words--
words that fell like music from his lips, and were repeated
with infinite power from his eyes. Low words, that had the
pleading of a thousand voices in them; words full of melody,
thrilling with romance; poetical, and yet real as the sunshine
around them.
In lovers of a colder race, bound by conventional ties, and a
dress rigorously divested of every picturesque element, such
wooing might have appeared ridiculous; but in Don Luis, the
most natural thing about it was its extravagance. When he
knelt at the feet of his beloved and kissed her hands, the
action was the unavoidable outcome of his temperament. When
he said to her, "Angel mio! you are the light of my
darkness, the perfume of all flowers that bloom for me, the
love of my loves, my life, my youth, my lyre, my star, had I
a thousand souls with which to love, I would give them all to
you!" he believed every word he uttered, and he uttered every
word with the passion of a believer.
He stirred into life also in the heart of Isabel a love as
living as his own. In that hour she stepped outside all of
her childhood's immaturities. She became a woman. She
accepted with joyful tears a woman's lot of love and sorrow.
She said to Antonia:
"Luis was in my heart before; now, I