He went out and slammed the door, and directly she heard him tell Juan Castillas that he had married one of the wooden saints of the Mission come to life.
"I am glad it is not one with the broken glass eyes and the missing fingers," laughed Juan. "Doña Raquel is the most beautiful woman in the Californias to-day."
She turned from the window and looked at herself in the mirror. The most beautiful woman in the Californias! Was that so? Could it be? Yet what was beauty, after all, if—
Between herself and the glass another face seemed to arise,—the blue-eyed childish face for which she had been forgotten.
"Holy Mother!" she moaned, and covered her own with her hands. "Of what use is beauty to a woman who is not beloved?"
Tormento de amor,
passion que devora,
Tu marchi taste
la fuente de mi vida.