For the Soul of Rafael Part 4

"The barbecues are over," said Bryton; "they were rather subdued this time, because of the funeral of Don Rafael's brother. I leave with the army men to-morrow for a trip farther north, and you had best return to Los Angeles, or go to your cousin in San Diego."

She pretended to busy herself concerning a bandbox on which the cord had broken, but her little white teeth bit into her lip. Rafael had entered the post-office with the driver of the stage.

"I am not interested in San Diego," she observed. "There must be somewhere in this row of adobes a place where a lady could stay."

"There is the tavern kept by Mac. You may be able to retain a room there alone, if no other women stop over."

"Share a room with strangers? But Don Rafael offered--"

"Don Rafael has only several adobes here, where the vaqueros eat and sleep--neither he nor his brother has lived here as a regular thing; when they do, they share the house of the major-domo, who has an Indian wife. The only privacy Don Rafael could a.s.sure you of would be to give you the key of the Mission."

"That graveyard! I must say you are not very brotherly, amigo--I learned some more words of Spanish on the way down! Well, if I must go to the awful tavern, I must! Do you suppose that villanous-looking black-and-tan in the serape will carry my boxes into the hotel? You've not said one civil word, Keith! Are Teddy and I to do the best we can without your blessing?" she asked, mockingly.

He looked at her slowly from head to foot, and back to her innocent wide-open blue eyes.

"I congratulate you," he said, briefly. "I will see that your belongings are taken to your room. The gentleman in the serape chances to be a Mexican Don, not accustomed to carting bandboxes."

"You are not very cordial in your congratulations," she observed, as if determined to break down his cold unconcern,--to make him _say_ something.

"No, I'm not," he agreed, tersely. "If Teddy had given me any idea of it, you know he would not have been a married man now."

"Oh, I knew you would be jealous, no matter whom he married," she replied; "I told him so!"

"So I supposed. But if you want to secure a room alone, you'd better not delay. Apartments are rather at a premium in San Juan."

He walked with her past the admiring group of prominent citizens toward the patio of the inn. Several of the men swept sombreros to the earth as she pa.s.sed. The cousin of Don Eduardo was a lady they must show special deference to, even if she had been ugly, which she certainly was not.

Most of them envied the tall, rather good-looking fellow swinging along by her side, but he did not seem as happy in the privilege as others would have been. Alvara, seeing himself forgotten for Don Eduardo's pretty blonde cousin, smiled a little, and continued his walk alone to the corral.

"She make him forget,--but she is not the woman," he said, shrewdly.

Mrs. Bryton surveyed the coa.r.s.e furnishings of the adobe with disgust as she was led to the one room where she could secure sleeping accommodation. It contained three beds with as many different-colored spreads, queer little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on a nail. The floor had once been tiled with square Mission bricks; but many were broken, some were gone, and the empty s.p.a.ces were so many traps for unwary feet. Names of former occupants were scratched in the whitewashed wall. There was no window, and but one door opening on the patio and to be fastened from within by a wooden bar.

"But this--there must be something better than this!" she exclaimed.

"It is the one home where you could make yourself understood. The proprietor chances to speak English. If you come without notifying your--relatives, you must take what you find, or go on to San Diego.

Your cousin is there--also his wife."

She shrugged her shoulders, and dropped wearily to a wooden bench.

"I can't ride another mile--I'm dead tired. But you don't ask why I came!"

"That is your husband's affair, not mine," he returned. "If there is nothing else I can do for you, I will go and look after my own affairs.

I start south in the morning."

"Because I came?" she demanded, with a slight smile. At sight of it his face flushed, and then the color receded while he regarded her steadily.

"Don't make any mistake about that," he suggested. "I did leave town out of impatience with another friend of mine, who was wasting his time with you. Of course he would not listen to me, and he has evidently told you.

I liked him, and did not want to see him made a fool of."

"Oh, you are a silly!" she replied, unfastening her hat-string and glancing at him strangely. "It never was that man for one little minute; you, of all the men, ought to know."

"I, of all the men, have been the one who did not guess that it was Teddy," he retorted. "But since it is, there is one thing to remember,--Teddy is the best fellow in the world, and the easiest mark, and you are not to forget it!"

"I did not promise to honor and obey you!" she retorted, petulantly.

"But if you don't in this case--" he halted abruptly and walked away.

Her high, sweet voice called after him, but he did not turn his head. He evidently realized that he had come very near threatening her; and, after all, if Teddy chose to make a fool of himself for a pretty doll--

For she was undeniably pretty, and she had created quite a flurry a year before when she reached San Pedro by steamer from Mexico, a girlish widow with one child, and waited there until the English cousin of her husband, Eduardo Downing, had been notified and came up in state from his ranches, with his Mexican wife, to receive her.

One child more or less never made any difference on the ranch of Eduardo, and his wife rather liked the little white doll that was alive, for her own brown-skinned grandchildren to play with. It was better than an Indian baby--more of a novelty, so that the family affairs of the young widow were easily adjusted. She accepted invitations to visit friends of her cousin on ranches and in town. For a year she had earned the reputation of being a rather gay flirt, and she could have married several times. Keith Bryton's friends had more than hinted that she was waiting for him, and when the word went abroad that it was his half-brother, eyes were opened wide in Los Angeles. There were lifted brows, and smiles. Keith knew how the marriage would be commented upon, and he was filled with rage that she should a.s.sume at once her care-free att.i.tude, and fraternize with Rafael Arteaga, as she evidently had done on the ride down. And Teddy trusted her absolutely--good old Teddy, who had been infatuated from the first sight of her, and had loved without hope until lately, very lately indeed!

They had been married on the eve of his trip to Mexico. His letter, written that night, and given her to mail, had been held back by the bride until she was ready to follow it on the next stage. What mad idea had she in thus coming to the last village likely to be attractive to her? Was it to enjoy her victory?--to show him that his years of devotion to Teddy went for nothing when she chose to turn the light of her countenance his way?

Something like that it must have been,--the freakish defiance of a spoiled child. Not innocent, despite the big baby-blue eyes, but too ignorant of social conditions in this Mexican town for him to leave her to the guardianship of Rafael Arteaga when he should ride away to-morrow. The only American men in the place were unmarried. For Teddy's sake he must see that she went too. For Teddy's sake--that was the devil of it!

Rafael was lounging in the door of the post-office smoking, when Bryton emerged from the patio. There was a smile in his eyes as he noted the annoyed face of the American.

"I was waiting for you, amigo," he said, walking beside him. "I have no wish to object to the hotel of our friend Mac; but I believe it may be possible to secure a better place for senora, your sister. The widow of my brother is still here, Mac has just told me. I can turn over to them a house of plenty of room to-morrow."

"Many thanks to you, Don Rafael; but the lady will probably remain only until the next stage pa.s.ses. It will not be necessary to inconvenience any of your people."

He nodded good-naturedly and left Rafael at the gate of Alvara. Teresa was yet on the veranda, interested in the one event of the day, the arrival of the stage, and the lady who was its most noticeable pa.s.senger. Alvara did not think it could have been Don Eduardo's cousin, for if so, surely Senor Bryton would have brought her at once to the Alvara home. Teresa, on the other hand, insisted that it was the English cousin; she had seen her once, and was sure that no other white woman would look so much like a white doll.

They at once appealed to Rafael to settle the question. Teresa pushed a chair toward him and suggested a gla.s.s of wine.

"Thou art tired, of course, and choked with the dust; a desert wind blew to-day! And who was your pretty senorita? Don Juan Alvara and I could not agree; he said it could not be the cousin of Don Eduardo, or she would certainly have accepted the very kind invitation he gave her to live here while waiting for her relations."

"Invitation?" Rafael looked quickly from one to the other. "I am very sure Senora Bryton failed to receive your invitation. She confessed herself in despair if her cousin should not be here on her arrival."

"But Senor? Bryton was told to bring her here."

"Oh--h!" He was silent a moment and then he smiled rea.s.suringly. "I see how it is! He thinks she will remain over only one day and does not like to put you to trouble; but the poor lady down there alone is no doubt very uncomfortable--perhaps unhappy. If your daughters could call and see her--I would accompany them. In fact, for the cousin of Don Eduardo I will do anything I may be allowed to do."

"Sure," agreed Alvara; "it is the right thing for a lady to ask her;--if only Dolores and Madalena have not ridden to the beach--"

He went into the house to see, and Teresa looked at Rafael and shrugged her shoulders.

"Thou hast told a part, but not all, my Rafael," she said, quietly. "Is the so good Senor Bryton not so good at last? Does he want his brother's wife to see only himself?"

"You don't like him?" he said, quickly.

"Well--if not?"

"Then we could play him a fine trick--fine! He is jealous, that is all.

She rode down with me, and of course, when I learned who she was, we talked--you saw! Well, our Americano likes to be the only man. He means to send her away to-morrow,--he is so angry because she marry his brother! Of course she goes, unless we keep her. It would be a good trick to play if we could walk down there, and--"