“Around the child’s neck, where I believe it has been since she came from the temple. Once she allowed me to see if I could tell what the metal was, but only for a moment, and then her eyes never quit me. She sits hours by herself, with the bauble clasped in both hands, and sighs, and mopes, and has no interest in what used to please her most.”
The king mused awhile. The power of the strangers was very great; what if the gift was the secret of the power?
“Go, Acatlan,” he said, “and call Nenetzin. See that she brings the charm with her.”
Then he arose, and began moodily to walk. Cuitlahua talked with Tecalco and Tula. The hour was very pleasant. The sun, lingering above the horizon, poured a flood of brilliance upon the hill and palace, and over the flowers, trailing vines, and dwarfed palm and banana trees, with which the azoteas was provided.
Upon the return of the queen with Nenetzin, the king resumed his seat. The girl knelt before him, her face very pale, her eyes full of tears. So lately a child, scarce a woman, yet so weighted with womanly griefs, the father could not view her except with compassion; so he raised her, and, holding her hand, said, “What is this I hear, Nenetzin? Yesterday I was thinking of sending you to school. Nowadays lovers are very exacting; they require of their sweethearts knowledge as well as beauty; but you outrun my plans, you have a lover already. Is it so?”
Nenetzin looked down, blushing.
“And no common lover either,” continued the king. “Not a ’tzin, or a cacique, or a governor; not a lord or a prince,—a god! Brave child!”
Still Nenetzin was silent.
“You cannot call your lover by name, nor speak to him in his language; nor can he speak to you in yours. Talking by signs must be tedious for the uses of love, which I understand to be but another name for impatience; yet you are far advanced; you have seen your beloved, talked with him, and received—what?”
Nenetzin clasped the iron cross upon her breast firmly,—not as a good Catholic, seeking its protection; for she would have laid the same hands on Alvarado rather than Christ,—and for the first time she looked in the questioner’s face straight and fearlessly. A moment he regarded her; in the moment his smile faded away; and for her it came never again—never.