For the Soul of Rafael

by Marah Ellis Ryan

“And—He was an Arteaga!”

The younger men rode fifty miles for costumes. Don Juan Alvara, who still wore knee-breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes, had promised to go to bed earlier that night because of the demand on his wardrobe. Raquel delved in old chests of Doña Luisa Arteaga's belongings, and brought out treasures of embroideries and brocades enough to turn the heart of Angela Bryton bitter with envy. She knew Raquel would look a barbaric queen in the jewelled bodices where topazes formed the hearts of yellow roses, or real pearl-embroidered lilies, and in laces—laces to wrap her like a mummy, leaving only those great violet eyes of hers visible to gaze in that serene haughty way at one, and through one!

But once having been forced by circumstances to take the hand of a guest in hers, Raquel Arteaga raised no material barriers to hospitality.

"They are at your pleasure, Señora Bryton," she said, graciously. "After you have selected what you would like, Carmella and Juanita may care for some of them. The white brocade of the lilies would become you. There is a white mantilla of lace to go with it, and pearls—plenty of pearls."

Doña Maria and Teresa Arteaga exchanged glances. They had never objected to the favorites of their husbands,—no good wife did,—but even the most devoted of Mexican wives had never opened her jewel-box for her rival.

However, they decided in confidence that Raquel had appeared strange and indifferent since the day of the fainting spell. She was more kind and gentle, if anything, to Rafael himself, even tender in little cares for his comfort, as his own mother might have been. But beyond the tender, conciliating, half-maternal attitude toward her husband, she walked as in a dream of indifference toward the rest of the world. Full of care as a hostess, she yet spent no moment alone with any guest except the silent padre, who paced the corridors, his eyes on a book, and always on guard at the door of the American, who had almost given his life that an unknown priest might live.

Rafael himself did not understand Raquel's gentle, devoted attitude. Once, as he smoked in the corridor facing the sea and commented aloud on the charms of a pretty girl who crossed the plaza, some man, standing there, took up the subject and spoke of his wife—Rafael's—and the lucky fellow he was to get her,—that girl of the South with her strange, alluring beauty not to be defined, but so surely felt by all who had the happiness to meet her. As Rafael listened, he, for a moment, felt again a delight in the barbaric sense of possession of her. It was true; she was of strange beauty, and he knew every man envied him. The thought of it brought back the remembrance of the fitful passion she had aroused in him there in Mexico, where the bars of the convent had made more keen his desire for victory. Some echo of that fitful passion sent him from the man in the plaza to the door of her room. It was not love; but she was his, and—he was an Arteaga!

The shadowy room was lit by the soft glow of candles on the altar of the Virgin. She had knelt there until some wave of feeling swept over her, leaving her prostrate at the feet of the serene, tender, changeless Mother of Sorrows. For a moment he halted, but the brandy he had been drinking was of the best. The Doña Angela had gone bathing with the others on the beach, while he had been kept in the town by some business, and a man must console himself. He remembered that he had won this girl, whom others found beautiful, from one altar there in the South; it gave a certain zest to his present determination. A woman could pray at any time; but just now—well, she should remember she was his!

What he said he did not clearly remember afterwards; but he was strong, and he had been silent, and she was gathered in his arms and lifted to her feet, and he was seeking her lips with his, when, with a cry that was terrible in its smothered rage, she wrenched herself free and darted to the table where the jewel-box lay open, and on the top of strings of pearls shone the glittering steel of a dagger. What she said to him turned him, sullen and cowed, toward the door. But there she stopped him.