"What need?" and Ana showed her white teeth in a laugh. "They did not teach us we must breathe to live; yet some way we learned it! But confess! You outride all the party to reach San Juan, and Rafael; yet how are we sure what urges you?"
"My promise."
"But why the promise, if the man is not beloved? You have had no harsh guardian, as I had; you were all free."
"Free? Oh yes, I had always the choice between some husband and the veil of a nun. And then—then Doña Luisa came with her love and her son, and her great plans of good work I could do out in the world. And so—and so we are riding to meet him, and I outride you!"
"I never hasten to trouble," remarked Ana Mendez; "and if we should meet him on the way, you would send me at once to the carriage. I should put in hours listening to the virtues of Rafael Arteaga and peril my soul pretending to agree with his mother."
"Why should you do that?"
"Raquel, do you really see how little the ideas of Don Rafael and his mother agree? I know little enough—thanks to California, which keeps its girls from education; but I do see that every thought of Rafael Arteaga is for the new ways, the ways of the Americano."
The younger girl drew up her horse with a cruel jerk, and faced her friend.
"Anita, beloved," she said, sadly, "you have said the thing I felt, but did not know. Why not let some less dear one tell me?"
"Holy Maria! Who else would? You are going among strangers, but you are no more a stranger to the California of to-day than is Doña Luisa. I hope all the time some one tell you at San Diego, or at San Luis Rey, but no one does; and Rafael does not meet us; and—"