“I love you devotedly,” he said.  “You believe that, Chonita?”

“Ah!  Mother of God! do not!  I cannot listen.”

“But you shall listen.  Throw off your superstitions and come to me.  Keep the part of your religion that is not superstition; I would be the last to take it from you; but I will not permit its petty dogmas to stand between us.  As for your traditions, you have not even the excuse of filial duty; your father would not forbid you to become my wife.  And I love you very earnestly and passionately.  Just how much, I might convey to you if we were alone.”

He was obliged to exercise great self-restraint, but there was no mistaking his seriousness.  When such scientific triflers do find a woman worth loving, they are too deeply sensible of the fact not to be stirred to their depths; and their depths are apt to be in large disproportion to the lightness of their ordinary mood.  “Come to me,” he continued.  “I need you; and I will be as tender and thoughtful a husband as I will be ardent as a lover.  You love me:  don’t blind yourself any longer.  Do you picture, in a life of solitude and cold devotion to phantoms, any happiness equal to what you would find here in my arms?”

“Oh, hush! hush!  You could make me do what you wished, I have no will.  I feel no longer myself.  What is this terrible power?”

“It is the magnetism of love; that is all.  I am not exercising any diabolical power over you.  Listen:  I will not trouble you any more now.  I am obliged to go to Los Angeles the day after to-morrow, and on my way back to Monterey—­in about two weeks—­I shall come here again.  Then we will talk together; but I warn you, I will accept only one answer.  You are mine, and I shall have you.”

They reached Casa Grande a moment later, and she escaped from him and ran to her room.  But she dared not remain alone.  Hastily changing her black gown for the first her hand touched,—­it happened to be vivid red and made her look as white as wax,—­she returned to the sala; not to dance even the square contradanza, but to stand surrounded by worshiping caballeros with curling hair tied with gay ribbons, and jewels in their laces.  Valencia regarded her with a bitter jealousy that was rising from red heat to white.  How dared a woman with hair of gold wear the color of the brunette?  It was a theft.  It was the last indignity.  And once more she chained Reinaldo, in default of Estenega, to her side.  And deep in Prudencia’s heart wove a scheme of vengeance; the loom and warp had been presented unwittingly by her chivalrous father-in-law.

Estenega remained in the sala a few moments after Chonita’s reappearance, then left the house and wandered through the booth in the court, where the people were dancing and singing and eating and gambling as if with the morrow an eternal Lent would come, and thence through the silent town to the pleasure-grounds of Casa Grande, which lay about half a mile from the house.  He had been there but a short while when he heard a rustle, a light footfall; and, turning, he saw Chonita, unattended, her bare neck and gold hair gleaming against the dark, her train dragging.  She was advancing swiftly toward him.  His pulses bounded, and he sprang toward her, his arms outstretched; but she waved him back.