"You no longer care?" she exclaimed.
"I did not say that. I said I should not bother you,—recognizing your hostility and your reasons. Be faithful to your traditions, my beautiful doomswoman. No man is worth the sacrifice of those dear old comrades. What presumption for a man to require you to abandon the cause of your house, give up your brother, sacrifice one or more of your religious principles; one, too, who would open his doors to the Americans you hate! No man is worth such a sacrifice as that."
"No," she said, "no man." But she said it without enthusiasm.
"A man is but one; traditions are fivefold, and multiplied by duty. Poor grain of sand—what can he give, comparable to the cold serene happiness of fidelity to self? Love is sweet,—horribly sweet,—but so common a madness can give but a tithe of the satisfaction of duty to pure and lofty ideals."
"I do not believe that." The woman in her arose in resentment. "A life of duty must be empty, cold, and wrong. It was not that we were made for."
"Let us talk little of love, señorita: it is a dangerous subject."
"But it interests me, and I should like to understand it."
"I will explain the subject to you fully, some day. I have a fancy to do that on my own territory,—up in the redwoods—"
"Here is Prudencia."
A small black figure swept down the steps of the church. She bowed low to Estenega when he was presented, but uttered no word. The Indian servants brought the horses to the door, and they rode down the valley to Casa Grande.