Part 22 (2/2)
At length, after we had partaken of _mate_ served by Ramona, the old servants retired from the room, not without many longing, lingering glances at their metamorphosed mistress. Then somehow or other our conversation began to languish, Demetria becoming constrained in manner, while that anxious shadow I had grown so familiar with came again like a cloud over her face. Thinking that it was time to leave her, I rose to go, and thanked her for the pleasant evening I had spent, and expressed a wish that her future would be brighter than her past had been.
”Thank you, Richard,” she returned, her eyes cast down, and allowing her hand to rest in mine. ”But must you leave me so soon?--there is so much I wish to say to you.”
”I will gladly remain and hear it,” I said, sitting down again by her side.
”My past has been very sad, as you say, Richard, but you do not know all,” and here she put her handkerchief to her eyes. There were, I noticed, several beautiful rings on her fingers, and the handkerchief she held to her eyes was a dainty little embroidered thing with a lace border; for everything in her make-up was complete and in keeping that evening. Even the quaint little shoes she wore were embroidered with silver thread and had large rosettes on them. After removing the handkerchief from her face, she continued silent and with eyes cast down, looking very pale and troubled.
”Demetria,” I said, ”tell me how I can serve you? I cannot guess the nature of the trouble you speak of, but if it is one I can help you out of, speak to me without reserve.”
”Perhaps you can help me, Richard. It was of this matter I wished to speak this evening. But now--how can I speak of it?”
”Not to one who is your friend, Demetria? I wish you could think that the spirit of your lost brother Calixto was here in me, for I am as ready to help you as he would have been; and I know, Demetria, that you were very dear to him.”
Her face flushed, and for a moment her eyes met mine; then, casting them down again, she replied sadly, ”It is impossible! I can say no more to you now. My heart oppresses me so that my lips refuse to speak.
To-morrow, perhaps.”
”To-morrow morning I leave you, and there will be no opportunity of speaking,” I said. ”Don Hilario will be here watching you, and, though he is so much in the house, I cannot believe that you trust him.”
She started at the name of Don Hilario, and cried a little in silence; then suddenly she rose and gave me her hand to bid good night. ”You shall know everything to-morrow, Richard,” she said. ”Then you will know how much I trust you and how little I trust him. I cannot speak myself, but I can trust Santos, who knows everything, and he shall tell you all.”
There was a sad, wistful look in her eyes when we parted that haunted me for hours afterwards. Coming into the kitchen, I disturbed Ramona and Santos deep in a whispered consultation. They started up, looking somewhat confused; then, when I had lit a cigar and turned to go out, they got up and went back to their mistress.
While I smoked I pondered over the strange evening I had pa.s.sed, wondering very much what Demetria's secret trouble could be. ”The mystery of the green b.u.t.terfly,” I called it; but it was really all too sad even for a mental joke, though a little timely laughter is often the best weapon to meet trouble with, sometimes having an effect like that of a gay sunshade suddenly opened in the face of an angry bull. Unable to solve the riddle, I retired to my room to sleep my last sleep under Peralta's dreary roof.
CHAPTER XXV
About eight o'clock next morning I bade the Peraltas goodbye, and set out on my long-delayed journey, still mounted on that dishonestly acquired steed that had served me so well, for I had declined the good Hilario's offer of a horse. Though all my toils, wanderings, and many services to the cause of liberty (or whatever people fight for in the Banda) had not earned me one copper coin, it was some comfort to think that Candelaria's never-to-be-forgotten generosity had saved me from being penniless; I was, in fact, returning to Paquita well dressed, on a splendid horse, and with dollars enough in my pocket to take us comfortably out of the country. Santos rode out with me, ostensibly to put me on the right road to Montevideo; only I knew, of course, that he was the bearer of an important communication from Demetria. When we had ridden about half a league without any approach to the subject on his part, in spite of sundry hints I threw out, I asked him plainly if he had a message for me.
After pondering over the question for as long a time as would be necessary to work out a rather difficult mathematical problem, he answered that he had.
”Then,” said I, ”let me hear it.”
He grinned. ”Do you think,” he said, ”that it is a thing to be spoken in half a dozen words? I have not come all this distance merely to say that the moon came in dry, or that yesterday, being Friday, Dona Demetria tasted no meat. It is a long story, senor.”
”How many leagues long? Do you intend it to last all the way to Montevideo? The longer it is the sooner you ought to begin it.”
”There are things easy to say, and there are other things not so easy,”
returned Santos. ”But as to saying anything on horseback, who could do that?”
”Why not?”
”The question!” said he. ”Have you not observed that when liquor is drawn from a cask--wine, or bitter orange-juice to make orangeade, or even rum, which is by nature white and clear--that it runs thick when the cask is shaken? It is the same with us, senor; our brain is the cask out of which we draw all the things we say.”
”And the spigot--”
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