Felipe studied her countenance. A more nearly rebellious feeling than he had supposed himself capable of slowly arose in his heart. Now he for the first time perceived what terror his mother must inspire in a girl like Ramona.
“Poor little one!” he thought. “If my mother looked at her as she did at me just now, I wonder she did not die.”
A great storm was going on in the Senora's bosom. Wrath against Ramona was uppermost in it. In addition to all else, the girl had now been the cause, or at least the occasion, of Felipe's having, for the first time in his whole life, angered her beyond her control.
“As if I had not suffered enough by reason of that creature,” she thought bitterly to herself, “without her coming between me and Felipe!”
But nothing could long come between the Senora and Felipe. Like a fresh lava-stream flowing down close on the track of its predecessor, came the rush of the mother's passionate love for her son close on the passionate anger at his words.
When she lifted her eyes they were full of tears, which it smote Felipe to see. As she gazed at him, they rolled down her cheeks, and she said in trembling tones: “Forgive me, my child; I had not thought anything could make me thus angry with you. That shameless creature is costing us too dear. She must leave the house.”
Felipe's heart gave a bound; Ramona had not been mistaken, then. A bitter shame seized him at his mother's cruelty. But her tears made him tender; and it was in a gentle, even pleading voice that he replied: “I do not see, mother, why you call Ramona shameless. There is nothing wrong in her loving Alessandro.”
“I found her in his arms!” exclaimed the Senora.
“I know,” said Felipe; “Alessandro told me that he had just at that instant told her he loved her, and she had said she loved him, and would marry him, just as you came up.”
“Humph!” retorted the Senora; “do you think that Indian would have dared to speak a word of love to the Senorita Ramona Ortegna, if she had not conducted herself shamelessly? I wonder that he concerned himself to speak about marriage to her at all.”