“Go the other way. Go, and forget her! Him too—all that has happened. ’Tis not yet too late. You are but upon the edge of the Scylla of passion. You may still shun it. Retire, and save yourself from its Charybdis!”
Prudence and experience—what is either—what are both in the balance against beauty? What were they when weighed against the charms of that Mexican maiden?
Even the slight I had experienced could not turn the scale in their favour! It only maddened me to know more; and perhaps it was this that carried me along the pavement, on the footsteps of Francisco.
If not entertained at first, a design soon shaped itself—a sort of morbid motive. I became curious to ascertain the condition of the man who had supplanted me; or whom I had been myself endeavouring to supplant with such slight success.
He had the air of a gentleman, and the bearing of a true militario—a type I had more than once met with in the land of Anahuac—so long a prey to the rule of the sabre.
There was nothing particularly martial about his habiliments.
As he passed lamp after lamp in his progress along the street, I could note their style and character. A pair of dark grey trousers without stripes; a cloak; a glazed hat—all after a fashion worn by the ordinary commerciantes of the place. I fancied I could perceive a certain shabbiness about them—perhaps not so much that, as a threadbareness—the evidence of long wear: for the materials were of a costly kind. The cloak was of best broadcloth—the fabric of Spain; while the hat was encircled by a bullion band, that, before getting tarnished by the touch of time, must have shone splendidly enough.
These observations were not made without motive. I drew from them a series of deductions. One, that could not be avoided: that my rival, instead of being rich, was in the opposite condition of life—perhaps penniless?
I was confirmed in this conjecture, as I saw him stop before the door of an humble one-storied dwelling, in a street of corresponding pretensions; thoroughly convinced of it as he lifted the latch with a readiness that betokened it to be his home, and, without speaking to any one, stepped inside.
The circumstances were conclusive; he was not one of the “ricos” of the place. It explained the clandestine correspondence, and the caution observed by her who flung down the billetita.