“You cannot go out alone!” she said, with disgust in her voice. “I am surprised to be forced to remind you that this is not—California. It would be impossible in your travelling costume, but dressed as for an evening’s entertainment in a private house you would be insulted at once. As long as you travel with us I must insist that you give as little trouble as possible.”
If she hoped for war, feeling herself for once secure, she was disappointed. Catalina merely shrugged her shoulders and, re-entering the hall, ascended the stair. She recalled that her room opened upon a balcony, which would answer her purpose.
The balcony hung above a garden overflowing with flowers, surrounded on three sides by the hotel and its low outbuildings, and secluded from the sloping street by a high wall. She paced up and down watching the servants under the veranda washing their dishes. They all wore a bit of the bright color beloved of the Iberian, and they made a great deal of noise. Suddenly Lydia took possession of her arm and related the adventure of the afternoon.
“Is it not dreadful?” she concluded. “A peasant! But to save my life I cannot be as furious as I should—nor help thinking of it. I feel like one of those princesses in the fairy tales beloved of the poor but wonderful youth.”
“It is highly romantic,” replied Catalina, dryly. “The setting was not all that it might have been, and I have seen too many picturesque vaqueros all my life to be deeply impressed by a handsome peasant in a blouse; but I suppose any romance is better than none in this Old World.”
She felt vaguely alarmed, and half a generation older than this silly little cousin whose suburban experience made her peculiarly susceptible to any semblance of romance in Europe; but as Lydia, repelled in her girlish confidence, drew stiffly away from her, Catalina relented with a gush of feminine sympathy.
“I really mean that a bit of romance like that makes life more endurable,” she asserted. “And you may be sure that your marquis would not have been so delicate. I wonder who he is! He certainly is a personage in his way. Of course, you’ll never see him again, but it will be something to think about when you are married to an author and correcting his type-written manuscripts!”
Lydia, mollified, laughed merrily. “I’m never going to marry any old author. Let the recording angel take note of that. I’m sick of mutual admiration societies—and all the rest of it. If I can’t do any better I’ll manage to marry some enterprising young business man and help him to grow rich.”
Catalina, who had had her own way all her life, nevertheless appreciated the colorless shallows in which her cousin had splashed of late in the vain attempt to reach a shore, and replied, sympathetically:
“Come back to California when I go and live on my ranch for a while. Out-of-doors is what you want; a far-away horizon is as good for the soul as for the eyes. And you’ll get enough of the picturesque and all the liberty you can carry—”