In the court-yard a small space was cleared, and changing couples danced El Jarabe and La Jota,—two stately jigs,—whilst the spectators applauded with wild and impartial enthusiasm, and Don Guillermo from the corridor threw silver coins at the dancers' feet. Now and again a pretty girl would dance alone, her gay skirt lifted with the tips of her fingers, her eyes fixed upon the ground. A man would approach from behind and place his hat on her head. Perhaps she would toss it saucily aside, perhaps let it rest on her coquettish braids,—a token that its owner was her accepted gallant for the evening.
Above, the slender men and women of the aristocracy, the former in black and white, the latter in gowns of vivid richness, danced the contradanza, the most graceful dance I have ever seen; and since those Californian days I have lived in almost every capital of Europe. The music is so monotonous and sweet, the figures so melting and harmonious, that to both spectator and dancer comes a dreaming languid contentment, as were the senses swimming on the brink of sleep. Chonita and Valencia were famous rivals in its rendering, always the sala-stars to those not dancing. Valencia was the perfection of grace, but it was the grace now of the snake, again of the cat. She suggested fangs and claws, a repressed propensity to sudden leaps. Chonita's grace was that of rhythmical music imprisoned in a woman's form of proportions so perfect that she seemed to dissolve from one figure into another, swaying, bending, gliding. The soul of grace emanated from her, too evanescent to be seen, but felt as one feels perfume or the something that is not color in the heart of a rose. Her star-like eyes were open, but the brain behind them was half asleep: she danced by instinct.
I was watching the dancing of these two,—the poetry of promise and the poetry of death,—when suddenly Don Guillermo entered the room, stamped his foot, pulled out his rosary, and instantly we all went down on our knees. It was eight of the clock, and this ceremony was never omitted in Casa Grande, be the occasion festive or domestic. When we had told our beads, Don Guillermo rose, put his rosary in his pocket, trotted out, and the dancing was resumed.
As the contradanza and its ensuing waltz finished, Estenega went up to Chonita. "You are too tired to dance any more to-night," he said. "Let us sit here and talk. Besides, I do not like to see you whirling about the room in men's arms."
"It is nothing to you if I dance with other men," she said, rebelliously, although she took the seat he indicated. "And to dance is not wrong."
"Nothing is wrong. In some countries the biggest liar is king. We know as little of ethics—except, to be sure, the ethics of civilization—as one sex knows of another. So we fall back on instinct. I have not a prejudice, but I feel it disgusting to see a woman who is somewhat more to me than other women, embraced by another man. It would infuriate me if done in private; why should it not at least disgust me in public? I care as little for the approving seal of the conventions as I care whether other women—including my own sisters—waltz or not."
And, alas! from that night Chonita never waltzed again. "It is not that I care for his opinion," she assured me later; "only he made me feel that I never wanted a man to touch me again."
Valencia used every art of flashing eyes and pouting lips and gay sally—there was nothing subtle in her methods—to win Estenega to her side; but the sofa on which he sat with Chonita might have been the remotest star in the firmament. Then, prompted by pique and determination to find ointment for her wounded vanity, she suddenly opened her batteries upon Reinaldo. That beautiful young bridegroom was bored to the verge of dissolution by his solemn and sleepy Prudencia, who kept her wide eyes upon him with an expression of rapt adoration, exactly as she regarded the Stations in the Mission when performing the Via Crucis. Valencia, to his mind, was the handsomest woman in the room, and he felt the flattery of her assault. Besides, he was safely married. So he drifted to her side, danced with her, flirted with her, devoted himself to her caprices, until every one was noting, and I thought that Prudencia would bawl outright. Just in the moment, however, when our nerves were humming, Don Guillermo thumped on the door with his stick and ordered us all to go to bed.
XIX.
The next morning we started at an early hour for the Rancho de las Rocas, three leagues from Santa Barbara. The populace remained in the booth, but we were joined by all our friends of the town, and once more were a large party. We were bound for a merienda and a carnesada, where bullocks would be roasted whole on spits over a bed of coals in a deep excavation. It took a Californian only a few hours to sleep off fatigue, and we were as fresh and gay as if we had gone to bed at eight the night before.