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Updated: June 29, 2025
A fan or a string of pearls, perhaps, for my sisters, the young señoritas; a fine saddle or a velvet jacket for my brother; and red blankets or gay handkerchiefs for the Indians, with sacks of beans or sweet potatoes to eat with their Christmas feast of roast ox or a fat sheep. Afterwards we danced till morning came, or sang to the sweet tinkle of the guitars.
It was a festal occasion, and many bright-eyed señoritas, casting stolen glances about them while accompanied by their duennas, were passing into the church. What a contrast of youth and age, between these fair young creatures so richly clad, so fresh and full of life, and the faded, hopeless vender of rosaries resting her weary limbs on the flinty portal!
As their ticket to heaven depended upon obedience, none of the faithful senoritas dreamed of declining the honor, even though it involved the expenditure of considerable of papa's good money and required them to spend most of the time until Christmas rehearsing for the ceremony and "praising the glory of God" with the priests in a room of the church, locked against worldly intruders.
From the great platform built under a group of live oaks near the patio they heard the resonant plunk-plunk-plunk of a harp making ready for the dance, and the shrill laughter of slim señoritas hovering there. Down the slope before the three the shadows stretched longer and longer. A violin twanged in the tuning, the harp-strings crooning the key. "You fellows are going to dance, ain't yuh?"
Then, there is another flock, a flock of girls, victims of the Chimera, walking with a nimble, a prancing step, with music scores under their arms, on the way to the maestro's; slender, light-haired English misses, who want to become prima donnas of comic opera; fair-skinned, buxom Russian parishnas who greet their acquaintances with the sweeping bow of a dramatic soprano; Spanish señoritas of bold faces and free manners, preparing for stage careers as Bizet's cigarette-girl frivolous, sonorous song-birds nesting hundreds of leagues away, and who have flown hither dazzled by the tinsel of glory.
With superb coolness and courage, he said: "While the horse is preparing, I will go and ask her to make ready; I hope," he added with a light laugh, "that she will not ask too many questions. Where shall I find her?" "The room of the Señoritas is in the second story facing the north; a light is burning within."
Over the dressing-table was the great scarlet fan which had played such a conspicuous part in the drama of "Cuba Libre," and it was pinned to the wall with a dagger of splendid and alarming appearance. The mirror was completely framed in photographs, mostly of dark-eyed señoritas in somewhat exaggerated toilets.
And close beside her the sinuous Mazantinita would flaunt a garish tambourine and wave a shrieking fan. All inanimate objects, shawls, mantillas, combs, and cymbals, become inflamed with life, once they are pressed into the service of these señoritas, languorous and forbidding, indifferent and sensuous.
And one day followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk to the charming señoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian, and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards" and shuffleboard, and everybody took a hand at times, and one evening, despite the havoc moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she didn't do too well as yet, and Pancha knew it without asking when she looked in Loring's eyes, and no power or persuasion could make her try again until long, long after.
The twisted Southern Cross shone on him. He turned and faced the north. "Somewhere he could hear a band playing. In one of the parks probably, and there would be leaves rustling there, and the scent of flowers, and the señoritas walking with their mothers, while the young men hung around the edges, striving to get a word, a look.
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