She smiled again, and touched her horse with the quirt; and though he caught his horse and mounted quickly, she was a considerable distance ahead of him, and perversely insisted on keeping a wide space between them, or else lagging beside the carriage for conversation with Doña Maria, whom Rafael knew she loved little.
For the rest of the ride there was no chance of a word alone with her. Only as they turned from the beach to the river valley she checked her horse for an instant, and with a little flash of a glance toward him, she flung a kiss from the tips of her fingers to the bluffs above San Juan River.
"Adios, O castle of the air in which Love might have lived! Adios, O boat of beautiful dreams, for which there is no harbor! Don Rafael, you sing so well—could you not put the castle and the boat in a Spanish song! It would sound pretty in a love-song, and it is much too romantic for every-day life; for, after all, there is no harbor here."
He devoured her with sombre eyes of desire, and a glint of rage showing through their ardent depths.
"There will be a harbor, madama mia," he muttered. "By the God and all the saints, there will be a harbor here on the San Juan shore, and there will be an embarcodera! And the boat will—will not be a boat in a song or a dream, madama mia! I swear it, I swear it, I swear it!"
He dug his spurs viciously into his mount to emphasize the words, and the animal reared and plunged, and gave him a chance to vent his feelings somewhat, while the Doña Angela tried to laugh, and failed. A passion like that was a very masterful force, and there had been times when she dared not treat it as a jest.
The shrewd, red-faced ranchman, riding in the carriage beside his swarthy wife, noted the little pantomime and nodded to Doña Maria.
"It is as you say, dear. It is better that Don Rafael be with his own wife. If anything should happen—"
"If one thing should happen, we should be blamed; even the bishop might blame us," said Doña Maria, fretfully. "She could marry with other men: what white devil in her turns her to that mad Rafael? The Arteaga men always have their own way. She should be married."
Her husband grunted assent, and regarded the fair figure of his kinswoman riding sedately along the green. She was such a fragile, childlike creature, he thought of her as a little yellow canary, pretty to see around the home after the many years lived among the dark people; but he never was certain in the least that he knew her, and he was beginning to consider some arrangement by which, for the good of the doll-like child asleep on the carriage cushions, he could suggest that she return to the land of the Briton and abide there—with, of course, a comfortable little sum for maintenance. Don Eduardo was too much of a politician not to see the wisdom of buying off embarrassing friends; the Doña Angela in her amusements might prove not only embarrassing, but dangerous. He had plans concerning certain Arteaga holdings, and could not have even a charming woman enter into his scheme of things, if she suggested discord. And watching Rafael Arteaga's face and the reckless passion in it, Don Eduardo decided that his fair countrywoman not only suggested discord, she was a living, breathing, alluring promise of it!