"Ay, but I am! I am not delicate at all. I can ride all day, and swim—which few of our women do. I even like to walk; and I can dance every night for a week. Only, this is an unusual time."
Her supple elastic figure and healthy whiteness of skin betokened endurance and vitality, and he looked at her with pleasure. "Yes, you are strong," he said. "You look as if you would last,—as if you never would grow brown nor stout."
"What difference, if the next generation be beautiful?" she said, lightly. "Look at Don Juan de la Borrasca. See him gaze upon Panchita Lopez, who is just sixteen. What does he care that the women of his day are coffee-colored and stringy or fat? You will care as little when you too are brown and dried up, afraid to eat dulces, and each month seeking a new parting for your hair."
"You are a hopeful seer! But you—are you resigned to the time when even the withered old beau will not look at you,—you who are the loveliest woman in the Californias?"
It was the first compliment he had paid her, and she looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her eyes again. "With truth, I never imagine myself except as I am now; but I should have always my books, and no husband to teach me that there were other women more fair."
"And books will suffice, then?"
"Sure." She said it a little wistfully. Then she added, abruptly, "I shall go to confession this week."
"Ah!"
"Yes; for although I hate you still—that is, I do not like you—I have forgiven you. I believe you to be kind and generous, although the enemy of my brother; that if you did oppose him and cast him into prison, you did so with a loyal motive; you cannot help making mistakes, for you are but human. And I do not forget that if it were not for you he would not be a bridegroom to-day. Also, you are not responsible for being an Estenega; so, although I do not forgive the blood in you,—how could I, and be worthy to bear the name of Iturbi y Moncada?—I forgive you, yourself, for being what you cannot help, and for what you have unwittingly and mistakenly done. Do you understand?"
"I understand. Your subtleties are magnificent."