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Chonita, in a white gown, a pale-green reboso about her shoulders, her arms crossed, her head thoughtfully bent forward, walked slowly up and down before him. "Holy God!" cried the old man, pounding the floor with his stick. "That they have dared to arrest my son! the son of Guillermo Iturbi y Moncada! That Alvarado, my friend and thy host, should have permitted it!"
Don Guillermo Iturbi y Moncada, the magnate of the South, owned a small schooner, and placed it at the disposal of the priests. Through the wide portals of the mission church, two weeks later, rolled the solemn music of high mass. The church was decorated as for a festival. The aristocrats of the town knelt near the altar, the people and Indians behind.
He went down to the booths in the town and joined the late revelers. Don Guillermo, rising before dawn, and walking up and down the corridor to conquer the pangs of Doña Trinidad's dulces, noticed that the door of his son's room was ajar. He paused before it and heard slow, regular, patient sobs. He opened the door and went in.
"Please don't mind me; I think you've said something a little 'komisch' but perhaps I've got a sunstroke and it acts like laughing gas. Don't be cross, Guillermo." I take his arm and notice covertly that he is mollified. "Blanca," he says, with a half smile, "dthat adobe house vidth vines look cool suppose I buy dthat and ve stay here leedle vhile." I follow his eyes.
In the court-yard a small space was cleared, and changing couples danced El Jarabe and La Jota, two stately jigs, whilst the spectators applauded with wild and impartial enthusiasm, and Don Guillermo from the corridor threw silver coins at the dancers' feet. Now and again a pretty girl would dance alone, her gay skirt lifted with the tips of her fingers, her eyes fixed upon the ground.
"We have a new Father in the Mission," continued her mother, remembering that she had not acquainted her daughter with all the important events of her absence. "And Don Rafael Guzman's son was drafted. That was a judgment for not marrying when his father bade him. For that I shall be glad to have Reinaldo marry. I would not have him go to the war to be killed." "No," said Don Guillermo.
She merely smiled and looked so handsome that she could afford to dispense with words. "A superb type," said Estenega to me, as Don Guillermo claimed the beauty's attention for a moment. "But only a type; nothing distinctive."
Thunderclouds were those heavy brows, lowered to the lightning which sprang from depths below. I looked again at Chonita. The pink color was in her marble face; pinker were her carven lips. "God of my soul!" I said to Estenega. "Go home." "My Prudencia," said Don Guillermo.
Don Guillermo Murcio is a character. He and his family are almost the only mestizos in the place. He is a hale and hearty blacksmith, and has lived for fifteen years in this purely indian town, where he has gained almost unbounded influence among the simple natives. His word is law, and the town-government trembles before his gaze.
Don Guillermo was rather pleased than otherwise, holding his son to be in need of further punishment; but Reinaldo was obliged to call upon all the courtesy of the Spaniard and all the falseness of his nature to help him remember that his enemy was his guest.
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