Like most children of her country Chata wore a scapulary. It had lain upon her breast ever since she could remember. She drew it out and looked at it. Some day she thought she would open it; now she only made the sign of the cross, as she replaced it. Rosario in nervous unrest had left her. The cool of the evening had come; the perfume of the flowers stole in at the open window, and the breeze soothed the unusual agitation of her mind. Glad to be alone, yet anxious and perplexed, she stepped into the garden. More than once as she walked down the alley she stopped, her heart palpitating violently. She fancied she heard her name called, or that Ramirez would step from the shadow of a tree to encounter her. It was an unnatural and unchildlike mood quite new to her. It seemed to her that her grandfather’s unnecessary mention of the Devil’s name might have incited that enemy of innocence to annoy her, and she whispered an Ave.
There was a large cluster of bananas just behind the house. Chata sat down there to watch the fantastic clouds which hovered where the sun had set. In her absorption in the glowing scene she was unconscious that any sound disturbed the silence around her. It was indeed but a low indistinct hum, scarcely recognizable as the sound of human voices. Had she noticed them, she would have remembered that she was within a foot or two of a window which was screened from sight by the foliage, and would have withdrawn from possible discovery; but as it was, she remained there an unconscious trespasser. The first distinct sound that reached her ear at once startled and impressed her, for it was the deep voice of Ramirez uttering her own name.
“Chata, yes it was Chata I said,” he affirmed dictatorially. “Why attempt dissimulation with you, Señora? I am in no humor for trifling. Will Doña Isabel provide a dowry for your daughter? It is my fancy that Ruiz should marry the little one, and I can make or mar him. So far the boy has blundered, but if he once turns his eyes on the pretty face of Chata, he will not find the mistake irremediable.”
Chata could not credit the evidence of her senses, and remained as if rooted to the spot. She presently heard her mother sobbing: “This is an unheard of thing! A young man pays court to one child,—perhaps she is not insensible to his advances,—and his patron comes to me to bid me give him another, whom he has not perhaps even glanced at. Oh, it is too much! too much!”
“I have already told you,” said Ramirez, coldly, “that Ruiz is poor. His father was my father’s servant, and is mine; more than once he has saved my life at the risk of his own. Years ago he rendered me a service that I swore to repay in a certain manner. More than once of late I have been reminded of my promise, and the marriage of Fernando with your daughter would render its fulfilment impossible.”
“By my patron saint!” cried Doña Rita, “it is strange indeed that a poor little country girl should interfere with the projects of a man as great as yourself. But even if that is possible, why bid me give him Chata?”—adding with asperity, “have I not done enough? No, no! I will not, I cannot make my Rosario a sacrifice!”
“Caramba!” cried Ramirez, laughing, “is it so dreadful a thing that she should wait until the next lover comes,—he will be sure to come, Señora,—and that she should have a double dower to make her fairer in his eyes? for I tell you Ruiz will ask no dowry from you with the little one. Come, come, Señora, I am not used to reasoning and pleading, yet I am not cruel. The child has been yours too long for me to tear her from your arms. It was a cunning device of Doña Isabel to hide her from me. Ah, it is not the first trick she has served me, and, like the others, she will find it turn to my advantage!”
“As Heaven is my witness,” ejaculated Doña Rita, in a voice of intense impulse and fear, “never have I breathed to mortal the secret which you seem to know! Who are you, sir? What have you to do with the child?” Suddenly, she uttered a horrified shriek. Chata, who had started from her seat with dilated eyes and lips parted, gasping for breath, heard her mother spring to her feet, and rush toward the door; heard also Ramirez follow her and apparently draw her back, remonstrating in low tones. Then she realized no more. Perhaps she fainted, though to herself there appeared no interruption of consciousness. Though she did not notice the stars come out, she beheld them at last looking down upon her, as if they heard the questions that were repeating themselves again and again in her mind. Whose child was she; who was the man who claimed the right to shape her destiny? That she was not the child of Rafael Sanchez and his wife she felt certain. Doña Rita had not denied the insinuation.
The child—all childish thoughts suddenly crushed by the overwhelming revelation she had surprised—remained in the same spot, unconscious of the passage of time, until she heard her sister—no, Rosario—calling her in anxious yet irritated tones: “Where art thou, Chata? Chata, the supper is ready; the grandfather is angry that thou art so long in the garden! Oh, here thou art!”
The two girls encountered each other in the dusk. Rosario threw her arms around the truant. “How cold thou art!” she said. “Hast thou seen a ghost here alone? Bless me! one would think the General Ramirez had brought the plague with him. My mother has shut herself up, and when I went to her door to beg her to tell me whether she was ill, she answered me, ‘The world is all ill. Go dress saints, my child, it is all that is left to thee!’ What could she have meant? Can it be after all that the General did not come from Fernando?”