“Don't say that, please. The place was for sale, Hubert telegraphed me, and I telegraphed back to buy it.”
“I didn't know you were so rich,” he answered, sneeringly.
Clarence made no reply.
“Well, I must admit you have cornered me completely; but as I don't want to live on the bounty of my rich son, I must get out of this place.”
“You can refund me the price of one hundred and sixty acres, father, if you are too proud to accept that from me, which is little enough, considering your generosity to me all my life. The other two claims, you know, you said would be one for Retty and the other for myself. This house and the orchards are all on your claim.”
“I have taken a dislike to the whole thing,” said he, waiving his hand, as if to shift the position of the land in question. “You can have it all, together with the Alameda farm. There are other lands in California.”
Mrs. Darrell and Clarence looked at each other. The case seemed hopeless. All were silent.
Mr. Darrell continued: “All I want before I leave here is to give your greaser father-in-law a sound thrashing and another to that puppy, Gabriel, who is so airy and proud, and such an exquisite, that it will be delightful to spoil his beauty.”
“But why should you wish to do that? What has Don Mariano done to you? and if Don Gabriel threw his lazo on you, it was to protect his father.”
“What has the old greaser done? He inveigled you into that land business, and you together have made me ridiculous. That is what the matter is.”
“Then you don't believe me?” Mrs. Darrell said.
“Don't you take so much credit to yourself, and throw yourself into the breach like a heroine. If the Don hadn't had that pretty daughter, Clarence would not have been so obedient to his mother, perhaps.”
Clarence rose to his feet, very pale, but he sat down again, and controlling himself, said as calmly as possible:
“I had never seen one, not one of Don Mariano's daughters when I went to offer to pay for this land.”
“Do you mean that you wouldn't have done so if your mother hadn't wished it?”
“No sir, not that. I think I would, for I felt great sympathy with the Don for the contemptible manner in which the squatters received the propositions he made them. I was convinced then that the land belonged to him, and nobody had a right to take it without paying for it.”
“Aha! I knew we would come to that,” said Darrell, sternly, glaring at his son. “I was a thieving squatter, of course, and that is what you said to your greaser father-in-law, who to reward your high sense of honor, took you to the bosom of his family. The cowardly dog, who will take insults and not resent them, but has puppies at his heels to throw lasooing at people.”
“Pshaw! I never thought you capable of—”
“Of what? Insulting those greasers?”
“They are gentlemen, no matter how much you may wish to besmear them with low epithets.”
“Gentlemen that won't fight.”
“They told you they would fight like gentlemen.”
“Who told you that?”
“I did, father. I heard Don Mariano and Don Gabriel both tell you that,” Everett said.
“If they are so ready to fight, why didn't they do it when I told the old dog that the bait to catch you was his daughter?”
“What! Did you say that?” asked Clarence, reddening to the roots of his hair, his face quickly blanching again.
“I did—in clear language.”
“In dirty, low, nasty language, and it is you who are the coward, to insult me under the shelter of your paternal privileges,” said Clarence, rising. “You have been taunting me until I can bear it no longer. I suppose you wish to drive me from your house. Be it so. I leave now—never to enter it again.”
“That suits me. You are too greasy for both of us to live under the same roof,” said Darrell, contemptuously, with a gesture of disgust.
“Good-by, mother; good-by, my sisters; good-by, boys—take care of mother and the girls. God bless you.”
With a piercing cry, that rang through the house, Alice ran to Clarence, and throwing her arms around his neck, said:
“Kiss me, my darling, for if you leave us I shall be wretched until you return. Oh! I can't let you go.”
Tenderly Clarence pressed his sister to his heart. He felt her arms relaxing, her head fell back, and she closed her eyes. Lovingly he then lifted her, and placing her upon a lounge, said:
“Alice has fainted, mother. My sweet sister, how dearly I love her, God only knows.”
He covered her face with kisses, while his own was bathed in tears. Without lifting his eyes or saying another word, he walked out into the darkness.
The delicious, fragrant air, loaded with the perfume of roses and honeysuckle and heliotrope, seemed to breathe a farewell caress over his heated brow, and the recollection of the loving care he had bestowed upon these flowers when he planted them to welcome his mother, flashed through his memory with a pang. He sighed and passed into the gloom, overpowered with a dread that made him feel chilled to the heart. It seemed to him as if an unseen voice was warning him of a dire misfortune he could not perceive nor avert. What could it be? Was Mercedes to be taken from him? Would her family object to him on account of his father's ruffianly behavior? Could he claim to be a gentleman, being the son of that rough? These thoughts flashed through his mind, filling him with sickening dismay and inexpressible disgust. Would he dare stand in the presence of Mercedes now? Or, would he return to town at this late hour? Where could he go for a shelter that night?
Mechanically he walked to the phæton, got into it and took the reins to drive off.