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Updated: June 12, 2025
The latter was conquered physically, but the dogged light of bigotry still burned in his eyes, although Estenega's were not agreeable to face. Estenega was furious.
He threw his arms about her, kissing and caressing her. "My sister! My sister! Thou wilt! Say that thou wilt!" But she flung him off as if he were a snake. "Wilt thou go?" she asked. "Ay! I go. But he shall suffer. I swear it! I swear it!" And he rushed from the room. Chonita sat there, staring more fixedly at the floor than when Estenega had left her. Reinaldo did not go to his Prudencia.
On Saturday night Chonita stole from her guests, donned a black gown and reboso, and, attended by two Indian servants, went up to the Mission to confession. As she left the church a half-hour later, and came down the steps, Estenega rose from a bench beneath the arches of the corridor and joined her. "How did you know that I came?" she asked; and it was not the stars that lit her face.
She only answered once, and then with only a line. But the line was this: "Write to me until you have forgotten me." One day she brought me a package and asked me to take it to Valencia. "Tell her to use it and her hair will grow again." And that was the only sign of penitence I was permitted to see. Then for a long interval there came no word from Estenega.
"Come," cried Rotscheff, "we are ready to start." And Estenega sprang to his horse. "I don't envy you," said the Princess Hélène from the veranda, her silveren head barely visible above the furs which enveloped her. "I prefer the fire." "You are warmly clad?" asked Estenega of Chonita. "But you have the blood of the South in your veins."
But one had only to look at that face, with its expression of bitter-humorous knowledge, its combination of strength and weakness, to feel sure that there were chapters in his life that no woman outside of them would ever read. I always felt, when with Diego Estenega, that I was in the presence of a man who had little left to learn of life's phases and sensations.
With the exception of Alvarado, Castro, and Estenega, the members of the Junta were men of middle age, and represented the talent of California, Jimeno, Gonzales, Arguëllo, Requena, Del Valle. Their dark, bearded faces, upturned to the stars, made a striking set of profiles, but the effect was marred by the silk handkerchiefs they had tied about their heads.
Estenega watched the vessel sail the next morning, and battled with the impulse to leap from the window, hire a boat, and overtake it. The delay of a month might mean the death of his hopes. For all he knew, the bark carried the letters of his undoing; Reinaldo himself might be on it.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes terrified and appealing. She looked very lovely and natural. Probably for the first time in his life Estenega resisted a temptation. He passionately wished to take her in his arms and tell her the truth. But he was too clever a man; there was too much at stake; if he frightened her now he might never even see her again. Moreover, she appealed to his chivalry.
"Ah!" said Valencia to Chonita, "I have heard of this Diego Estenega. I too am glad that he comes. I have the advantage of thee this time, my friend. Thou and he must hate each other, and for once I am without a rival. He shall be my slave." And she tossed her spirited head. "He shall not!" cried Chonita, then checked herself abruptly, the blood rushing to her hair.
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