It was but slight comfort to her to reflect: that Louise Poindexter had appeared equally determined upon parting from the jacalé. With a woman’s intuitive quickness, she suspected the cause; though she knew, too well, it was groundless.
Still, there was some pleasure in the thought: that her rival, ignorant of her happy fortune, was suffering like herself.
There was a hope, too, that the incident might produce estrangement in the heart of this proud Creole lady towards the man so condescendingly beloved; though it was faint, vague, scarce believed in by her who conceived it.
Taking her own heart as a standard, she was not one to lay much stress on the condescension of love: her own history was proof of its levelling power. Still was there the thought that her presence at the jacalé had given pain, and might result in disaster to the happiness of her hated rival.
Isidora had begun to dwell upon this with a sort of subdued pleasure; that continued unchecked, till the time of her rencontre with the Texans.
On turning back with these, her spirits underwent a change. The road to be taken by Louise, should have been the same as that, by which she had herself come. But no lady was upon it.
The Creole must have changed her mind, and stayed by the jacalé—was, perhaps, at that very moment performing the métier Isidora had so fondly traced out for herself?
The belief that she was about to bring shame upon the woman who had brought ruin upon her, was the thought that now consoled her.
The questions put by Poindexter, and his companions, sufficiently disclosed the situation. Still clearer was it made by the final interrogations of Calhoun; and, after her interrogators had passed away, she remained by the side of the thicket—half in doubt whether to ride on to the Leona, or go back and be the spectator of a scene, that, by her own contrivance, could scarce fail to be exciting.
She is upon the edge of the chapparal, just inside the shadow of the timber. She is astride her grey steed, that stands with spread nostril and dilated eye, gazing after the cavallada that has late parted from the spot—a single horseman in the rear of the rest. Her horse might wonder why he is being thus ridden about; but he is used to sudden changes in the will of his capricious rider.