“What you say will make my mother happier,” he told Rawley, coming back and speaking in his usual calm tone of immutable reserve. “She seemed very bitter to-day when she talked with me. She has always thought your grandfather went away knowing he would never come back. And she has proud, Spanish blood in her veins—”
“Anita, by ——!” Rawley’s jaw dropped in sheer, crestfallen amazement.
“Did he tell you?” Peter eyed him queerly.
“It’s the diary. The beautiful, half-Spanish girl, all fire and life—he described her like that. And—”
“Well, they change as they grow old.” Peter’s lips twitched in a grin. “The beautiful Spanish señoritas get fat and ugly, and the Indian women are more so. Your grandfather’s fiery Spanish girl had nothing to pull her up the hill. Monotony, hardships—one can’t wonder if the recidivous influences surrounding her all these years pulled her down to the dead level of her mother’s people. Take this Indian here—” he tilted his head toward Johnny Buffalo—“he was taken out of it when he was a kid. Now, aside from certain traits of dignity and repression, I imagine he’s more white than Indian.”
Rawley nodded. “Lived right with Grandfather all his life and has studied and read everything he could get his hands on. He’s better educated than lots of college men; aren’t you, Johnny?”
“Yes. I think very much, of many things which Indians do not know. I do not talk very much. And that is wisdom also.”
“Mother had nothing from books. When her youth went and she began to take on weight, she dropped her pretty ways and became like the squaws. I remember, and it used to hurt my pride to see her slip into their ways. I was—white.” His mouth shut grimly.
Rawley lay looking into his face, trying to realize the full significance of this amazing truth. His grandfather’s son, and Anita’s. His own uncle. With Indian blood, but his uncle nevertheless. If Grandfather King had known—
“He’d have been proud,” he said aloud, “to have a son like you. He always wanted—and my father was a weakling, physically, I mean. He died when I was just a kid. Grandfather called him a damned milksop, because he wanted to work in a bank. Johnny can tell you a lot about Grandfather—your—father.” He lowered his voice, mindful of Peter’s warning. And then, “Does Nev—does your niece know about it?”