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Updated: June 18, 2025
Doña Martina gave him a sleepy welcome, and he turned his attention to the dancing, in which he could take no part. He knew that his manners were good and his carriage easy, but the lighter graces had not come his way. At the moment a girl was dancing alone in the middle of the sala, and John knew instinctively that she was Delfina Carillo.
Delfina, the first child of Alvarado, born in the purple at the governor's mansion in Monterey, was about to be baptized with all the pomp and ceremony of the Church and time. Doña Martina, the wife of a year, was unable to go to the church, but lay beneath her lace and satin coverlet, her heavy black hair half covering the other side of the bed.
Eyes green and black and blue sparkled above the edge of large black fans; fiery eyes responded from beneath silver-laden sombreros. The populace, in gala attire, crowded the rest of the plaza and adjacent streets, chattering and gesticulating. But all looked in vain for Delfina de Capalleja. Much ceremony attended the melting of the bell.
His olive-trees were neglected, and he spent the hours of their separations riding about the country with as little mercy on his horses as had he been a Californian born. Sometimes, touched by the youthful fervor in his eyes, Delfina would melt perceptibly and ask him a question or two about himself, a dazzling favor in one who held that words were made to rust.
For the Señora had gone and Delfina Carillo lay there. Not the magnificent pulsing creature of old, for her face was pinched and little blue veins showed everywhere; but the ugly browns had gone with her flesh, her skin was white, and her cheeks flamed with color. Her eyes looked enormous, and her mouth had regained its curves and mobility, although it drooped.
Then, as the ship's captain and passengers landed, a whisper ran through the crowd, a wail, and wild sobbing. They flung themselves to the earth, beating their heads and breasts, all but Delfina de Capalleja, who drew her mantilla about her face and walked away.
Delfina de Capalleja, who had stood with panting chest and dilating nostrils, turned from the sacrificial caldron, the crowd parting for her again, the Laudate Dominum swelling. As she reached the cathedral, a man who loved her, noting a change in her face, sprang to her side. She raised her bewildered eyes to his and thrust out her hands blankly, then fell dead across the threshold.
John soon fell into the habit of spending two nights a week at the Rancho de los Olivos, and never failed to fill his pockets with sweets for the little girls, who preferred him to their father. And his love! He used to fancy it was buried somewhere in the mausoleum of flesh which had built itself about Delfina Carillo.
It was the full of the moon, but in the forest there was only an occasional splash of silver. They might have fancied themselves alone in primeval solitude had it not been for the gay voices behind them. And never had Delfina been so enchanting. She even talked a little, but her accomplished coquetry needed few words.
For a time the heavy dinner locked Talbot's brain, but finally he began to dream of his youth, and the scenes of which Delfina Carillo had been the heroine were flung from their rusty frames into the hot light of his memory, until he lived again the ecstasy and the anguish of that time.
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