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They were excommunicated, of course, and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all of whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family.
“Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.… More than once, doubtless, he took the life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as a servant of the State.… That is not murder. That would not doom him to hell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.… But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.…”
He learned afterward that the over-shrewd lawyer had misinterpreted his trip to New York, imagining that he had gone there to interest eastern capital in his lands. His mother and sister were two very cogent arguments in favour of selling. The Dona Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now regarded herself as a woman of wealth, and was always after him for money.
Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and crossed her legs with a defiant look at her mother. “I’m not interested in him,” she announced with decision. “I think he’s a bore. Listen, Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters? Well, he was telling me the most thrilling tale the other day.
A peep had shown him that already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies half a block long had formed in the street, and he could hear the arrival of another one every few minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous and poor relations of Don Delcasar who lived in the country. All of them would be there by night.
Thus some of the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really of a mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingled in Spain, those of Navajo and French. Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activities which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars.
“No; I’ll write it … Was it Carter? Delcasar? Ramon Delcasar. You must be Spanish. I was wondering … you’re so dark. I’m awfully interested in Spanish people.…” She wrote the name in a bold, upright, childish hand. Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent after this, and he entered with zest into the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its stiff and formal character.
Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad train he indulged a habit, not uncommon among men, of choosing from the women passengers the one whose appearance most pleased him to be the object of his attention during the journey.
He continually went to the Dona Delcasar with complaints and that devout woman incessantly nagged her son, holding before him always pictures of the damnation he was courting. Once in a while she even produced in him a faint twinge of fear—a recrudescence of the deep religious feeling in which he was bred—but the feeling was evanescent.
The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred about three weeks later, provided the town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed. Although there was really not a great deal to be said about the affair, since it remained from the first a complete mystery, the local papers devoted a great deal of space to it.
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