"Sure, it was the glasses," affirmed Don Ricardo. "No man of California would let a girl of pleasure dance on the things sacred to the woman of his family; eh, Antonio?"
"Of course; at any other time Rafael would have thrown the girl through a window; truly, he would!"
"No doubt of it," agreed Bryton.
"Doña Luisa has given the boy a long rope. It must be that she has learned that it is too long—she comes back after the years to steady him with a wife,—and such a wife! Young, wealthy, beautiful!"
"And a young nun, all but the veil!"
"That seems rather a joke—or a tragedy—after all this," and Bryton motioned to the remainders of the night's carouse.
"If there is a joke, it is the devil playing it on the saints."
"Sure; and the devil wins," agreed Don Antonio. "It is all settled. The Doña Luisa is a wise woman. Her son wins a wife, and the convent loses a fortune and a nun at the same time."
"Had the good son nothing to do with the arrangement?" asked the American, dryly.
"Oh, of course, señor. Three times he have gone to Mexico, where Felipe Estevan's daughter visit with his mother. He has time to sing many dozens of serenades,—all of the burning hearts and torment of love, and lost souls, to make a girl have pity. Maybe she have never before talked with one young man, one minute of her life; who knows?"