“Tut! tut! tut! that is not my business; and as you will not hear my pretty little tale,”—for Chinita thrust him violently aside,—“I will give you but one word of warning and be gone: the old hind pushes at the young fawn, but they both make venison.”
Chinita was accustomed to the obscure phraseology and symbolical meanings of the thousand proverbs used by her country people, and she instantly caught the idea the speaker sought to convey; but its very audacity held her silent for some moments. It was only after she had gazed at him long and searchingly that she could stammer, “Doña Isabel—and I—Chinita—the same—of one blood!”
The man nodded, but put his finger upon his lip. He feared perhaps some wild outburst of surprise or exultation; but instead she said in an awed whisper, “Is she then my mother?”
Tio Reyes leaned against the church and burst into irrepressible though silent laughter. “What next will the girl dream of?” he ejaculated at length, and laughed again.
“What, am I then such a fool?” asked Chinita, coolly, though with inward rage. “Look you, if you had told me yes, I would not have believed you any more than I believed when Señor Enrique said that she had the young American killed who died so many years ago. Bah! one thing is as foolish as the other,” and she turned away disdainfully.
“What!” exclaimed the man, eagerly, “do they say that? Humph! Well, things as strange as that have happened in her day.”
“But that is a lie,” cried Chinita, excitedly; “it was only because Doña Isabel would not interfere to save his son from being shot as murderer and ladron that Enrique said so. He went away himself the day after, and he it was who led Calvo to the rancho del Refugio. But what has that to do with us?” and now first, perhaps because there had been time for the matter to take shape in her mind, she showed an eager and excited curiosity. “Tell me who I am; you surely have more to tell me than that I was born Garcia!”
The man stared, then cried, “And is not that enough? Why, for a word thou canst be as good as Doña Isabel’s daughter. With that face of thine she dare not refuse thee anything.”
Chinita looked at him as if she would have torn his secret from him. Strange to say, not a suspicion that he was jesting with her entered her mind. Even as she stood there almost in rags, she felt instinctively that she was far removed from him. The one thought that she was a Garcia, one of the family whom she looked upon as the incarnation of wealth and power, overpowered every other emotion, even that of curiosity. She was vexed, baffled that he said no more, yet felt as though she had known all, and had but for a moment forgotten. She even turned away from him with a momentary impulse to rush into the presence of Doña Isabel and assail her with the cry, “Look at me! Why did you thrust me away? I too am a Garcia!”
“Stay!” cried Tio Reyes, as she started from his side. Her wild thoughts had flashed by so rapidly that, quick though he was to read the countenance, he had caught scarce an inkling of what had passed through her mind, and was certain only of the half-dazed dislike with which she looked at him. It irritated and disappointed him.