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Andrés entered the room and, without speech, embraced Charles, kissing him on either cheek; and soon Carmita Escobar and Narcisa, with their parasols and embroidered gloves, returned from their drive. They could do nothing but wait for what impended, and Charles Abbott related to Andrés the entire scene with La Clavel. "I believe in her," he concluded. Andrés agreed with him.
Must all my life go on in this funeral march?" The elder Escobars regarded her in a voiceless amazement; but Andrés said severely: "You are too young to understand the tragedy of Cuba or Vincente's heroic spirit. I am ashamed of you before Charles Abbott." Narcisa rose and walked swiftly out upon the balcony.
Their mother and Narcisa, he proclaimed, must go out as usual for their afternoon drive, and he would secure some clothes that belonged to Juan Roman, the servant. No one in the back of the house, luckily, had seen the riders leave. Judged more faithful than the rest, they had been sent away as secretly as possible. "What," Charles Abbott asked, "caused his death?" Andrés faced him coldly.
Charles Abbott kissed her softly and then took her hands. "You wouldn't want me, Narcisa," he continued; "if I failed in this, I should fail you absolutely. If I were unfaithful now I could never be faithful to you." She drew her hands sharply away. "It's you who are young and not I," she declared; "you talk like a boy, like Andrés.
She rose, presently, and walked out. Charles gazed at Domingo and Carmita Escobar; they were sunk in thought, inattentive, and he quietly joined Narcisa. "Andrés has told me a great deal about you," she proceeded; "I made him. He loves you too, and he says that you are very strong and respected everywhere. I have had to hear it like that, for you never come here now.
Domingo Escobar, it developed, had a grown son, Vincente, twenty-eight years old; a boy perhaps Charles' own age no, Andrés would be two, three, years younger; and Narcisa. The latter, his daughter, Escobar, unashamed, described as a budding white rose.
A great many men are quite happy with a loving wife and children and a home a place to go back to always; and, in a way, since I have known you, I envy them. Their lives are full of happiness and usefulness and specially peace; but, dearest Narcisa, I can't be like that, it isn't for me.
The family, exactly as he had known it, was assembled in the drawing-room, conversing under the icy flood of the crystal chandelier. He found a chair by Narcisa, and listened studiously to the colloquial Spanish, running swiftly around the circle, alternating with small thoughtful silences.
In a flash he saw the gathering disintegration of the Escobar family Vincente dead, his body dishonored; Narcisa, ineffable, flower-like, sacrificed to dull ineptitude; Domingo, who had been so cheerfully round, furrowed with care, his spirit dead before his body; Carmita sorrowing; and Andrés, Andrés the beautiful, the young and proud, betrayed, murdered in a brawl at a negro dance.
Or, rather, she gave promise of charm; at present, she was too young to engage him in any considerable degree. Narcisa, he concluded, was fourteen. At very long intervals she looked up and he caught a lustrous, momentary interrogation of big black eyes.
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