Chapter Ten.
An old enmity.
I rode slowly, and but a few paces before reining up my horse. Although I was under the impression that it would be useless remaining, and that an interview with Isolina was impossible—for that day at least—I could not divest myself of the desire to linger a little longer near the spot. Perhaps she might appear again upon the azotea; if but for a moment; if but to wave her hand, and waft me an adieu; if but—
When a short distance separated me from the walls, I drew up; and turning in the saddle, glanced back to the parapet. A face was there, where hers had been; but, oh, the contrast between her lovely features and those that now met my gaze! Hyperion to the Satyr! Not that the face now before me was ugly or ill-featured. There are some, and women too, who would have termed it handsome; to my eyes it was hideous! Let me confess that this hideousness, or more properly its cause, rested in the moral, rather than the physical expression; perhaps, too, little of it might have been found in my own heart. Under other circumstances, I might not have criticised that face so harshly. All the world did not agree with me about the face of Rafael Ijurra—for it was he who was gazing over the parapet.
Our eyes met; and that first glance stamped the relationship between us—hostility for life! Not a word passed, and yet the looks of each told the other, in the plainest language, “I am your foe.” Had we sworn it in wild oaths, in all the bitter hyperbole of insult, neither of us would have felt it more profound and keen.
I shall not stay to analyse this feeling of sudden and unexpressed hostility, though the philosophy of it is simple enough. You too have experienced it—perhaps more than once in your life, without being exactly able to explain it. I am not in that dilemma: I could explain it easily enough; but it scarcely merits an explanation. Suffice to say, that while gazing upon the face of that man, I entertained it in all its strength.
I have called it an unexpressed hostility. Therein I have spoken without thought: it was fully expressed by both of us, though not in words. Words are but weak symbols of a passion, compared with the passion itself, exhibited in the clenched hand, the lip compressed, the flashing eye, the clouded cheek, the quick play of the muscles—weak symbols are words compared with signs like these. No words passed between Ijurra and myself; none were needed. Each read in the other a rival—a rival in love, a competitor for the heart of a lovely woman, the loveliest in Mexico! It is needless to say that, under such an aspect, each hated the other at sight.
In the face of Ijurra I read more. I saw before me a man of bad heart and brutal nature. His large, and to speak the truth, beautiful eyes, had in them an animal expression. They were not without intelligence, but so much the worse, for that intelligence expressed ferocity and bad faith. His beauty was the beauty of the jaguar. He had the air of an accomplished man, accustomed to conquest in the field of love—heartless, reckless, false. O mystery of our nature, there are those who love such men!
In Ijurra’s face I read more: he knew my secret! The significant glance of his eye told me so. He knew why I was lingering there. The satiric smile upon his lip attested it. He saw my efforts to obtain an interview, and confident in his own position, held my failure but lightly—a something only to amuse him. I could tell all this by the sardonic sneer that sat upon his features.