“But do you think her beautiful?”

“She is better than beautiful.  She is original.”

“I often wonder if she would be La Favorita of the South if it were not for her father’s great wealth and position.  The men who profess to be her slaves must have absorbed the knowledge that she has the brains they have not, although she conceals her superiority from them admirably:  her pride and love of power demand that she shall be La Favorita, although her caballeros must weary her.  If she made them feel their insignificance for a moment they would fly to the standard of her rival, Valencia Menendez, and her regalities would be gone forever.  A few men have gone honestly wild over her, but I doubt if any one has ever really loved her.  Such women receive a surfeit of admiration, but little love.  If she were an unintellectual woman she would have an extraordinary power over men, with her beauty and her subtle charm; but now she is isolated.  What a pity that your houses are at war!”

He had been looking away from me.  As I finished speaking he turned his face slowly toward me, first the profile, which looked as if cut rapidly with a sharp knife out of ivory, then the full face, with its eyes set so deeply under the scraggy brows, its mouth grimly humorous.  He looked somewhat sardonic and decidedly selfish.  Well I knew what that expression meant.  He had the kindest heart I had ever known, but it never interfered with a most self-indulgent nature.  Many times I had begged him to be considerate of some girl who I knew charmed him for the moment only; but one secret of his success with women was his unfeigned if brief enthusiasm.

“Let her alone!” I exclaimed.  “You cannot marry her.  She would go into a convent before she would sacrifice the traditions of her house.  And if you were not at war, and she married you, you would only make her miserably happy.”

He merely smiled and continued to look me straight in the eyes.

V.

I went upstairs and found Chonita reading Landor’s “Imaginary Conversations.” (When Chonita was eighteen,—­she was now twenty-four—­Don Alfredo Robinson, one of the American residents, had at her father’s request sent to Boston for a library of several hundred books, a birthday gift for the ambitious daughter of the Iturbi y Moncadas.  The selection was an admirable one, and a rancho would not have pleased her as well.  She read English and French with ease, although she spoke both languages brokenly.) As I entered she laid down the book and clasped her hands behind her head.  She looked tranquil, but less amiable than was her wont.

“Thou hast been far away from the caballeros and the donas of Monterey,” I said.

“Not even among Spanish ghosts.”

“I think thou carest at heart for nothing but thy books.”

“And a few people, and my religion.”

“But they come second, although thou wilt not acknowledge it even to thyself.  Suppose thou hadst to sacrifice thy religion or thy books, never to read another?  Which wouldst thou choose?”