Thus spoke Mendoza to the company assembled in the dining hall.
This room was a little smaller than the ballroom, and its finish was of polished oak combined with redwood. The tables ran nearly the length of the apartment.
The products of Mendoza's gardens and hothouses had been levied on to furnish adornment. Cut roses tumbled in profusion from vases arranged along the middle of the tables, while potted palms cast shadows from chandeliers and wall-candles. Ivy shaped itself into an archway over the entrance, crept through the foliage of house shrubs lining the walls, and intertwined here and there into bowers of ease. Against the green vine, flowers, rivaling the rainbow in tints, sang in color notes the jubilation of California's spring.
The people enjoyed the midnight supper. The cooling air of the courtyard, the dance, the animated conversation had whetted the appetites to an edge.
Finding place not in any particular order, but in the company their preference sought, as was the way in these large gatherings, the girls, with their dueñas, and the gallants were mostly at one end of the room, leaving the graver portion of the assembly by itself.
Señor Mendoza was at the head of a table. At its foot was his daughter. Near him was the wisdom of the valley, represented by the heads of families. Morando wished to seat himself at the señorita's right hand, but she had already motioned Abelardo Peralta to that place. On her left was Alfreda Castro.
The soldier found himself next to young Peralta, and directly opposite Señora Valentino.
"I have a budding magnolia by my plate," burst out Lolita Hernandez. "My partner shall wear it for a button-hole bouquet. He lacks only that. Come, I'll put it on you."
The youth by her side was nothing loth.
"Señorita Doña," spoke her dueña, who was on the other side, "what can you mean? A nosegay so large emulates the cabbage. Why not use this Castilian rose? Behold, it blushes for you," laughing.