A lesson from Bachelder pleased him less. Knowing Paul's pride in his German ancestry, and having been present when, in seasons of swollen pride, he had reflected invidiously in Andrea's presence on Mexico and all things Mexican, the artist, in a wicked moment, taught her to lisp "Hoch der Kaiser!" lèse-majesté that almost caused Paul a fainting-fit.
"You shouldn't have taught her that," he said to Bachelder. But the mischief was done. Whenever, thereafter, through torment of insect or obsession of national pride, he animadverted on her country, she silenced him with the treasonable expression.
She learned other than English from Bachelder's woman, sweating out the dog days in Rosa's kitchen, experimenting with the barbaric dishes Gringos love. She slaved for his comfort, keeping his linen, her house and self so spotlessly clean that as Paul's passion waned, affection grew up in its place—the respectful affection that, at home, would have afforded a permanent basis for a happy marriage. When, a year later, their baby came, no northern benedict could have been more proudly happy.
Watching him playing with the child, Bachelder would wonder if his union also would terminate like all the others of his long experience. In her, for it was a girl baby, Paul's fairness worked out, as she grew, in marvelous delicacies of cream and rose, weaving, moreover, a golden woof through the brown of her hair. From her mother she took a lithe perfection of form. At two she was well started for a raving beauty, and as much through his love for her as for Andrea, Paul had come, like Bachelder, to swear by the Tewana women.
He might have been swearing by them yet, but his company's business suddenly called him north, and no man could have bidden a white wife more affectionate farewell or have been more sure of his own return. "It is a comfort to know that your woman won't go gadding while you are away, and that is more than a fellow can make sure of at home." These were his last words to Bachelder.
He was to be absent two months, but after he had reported adversely on a mine in Sonora, he was ordered to expert a group in far Guerrera, where the mountains turn on edge and earth tosses in horrible tumult. Then came a third order to report in New York for personal conference. Thus the months did sums in simple addition while Andrea waited, serenely confident of his return. Not that she lacked experience of deserted wives, or based hope on her own attractions. Her furious mother love simply could not form, much less harbor, the possibility of Paul's deserting their pretty Lola.
And, barring her loneliness, the year was kind to her, feeding her mother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sit with three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at the feet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the eastern fiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day the vaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles guttered under the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lola sat it out like a small thoroughbred, earning thereby the priest's kindly pat and her mother's devoted worship.
Then, on her third saint day, the small girl donned her first fiesta costume, a miniature of the heirlooms which descend from mother to daughter, each generation striving to increase the magnificence of the costume just as it strove to add to the gold pieces in the chain which did triple duty as hoard, dowry and necklace. Andrea subtracted several English sovereigns from her own to start Lola's, and, with the American gold eagle, the gift of Bachelder, her padrino, godfather, they made an affluent beginning for so small a girl. As for the costume? Its silk, plush, velours, were worked by Andrea's clever fingers curiously and wondrously, even when judged by difficult Tewana standards. Bachelder painted the small thing, kneeling by her mother's side before the great gold altar. Her starched skirt, with its band of red velours, stands of itself leveling her head, so that she looks for all the world like a serious cherub peering out from a wonderfully embroidered bath-cabinet. But ah! the serious devotion of the faces! The muse Bachelder had followed so faithfully was hovering closely when his soul flamed out upon that canvas. It ranks with his "Enganchada." Either would bring him fame, yet they rest, face to face, in a dusty locker, awaiting the day when time or death shall cure the ache that a glimpse of either brings him.
Two months after that canvas was put away, eighteen counting from the day of his departure, Bachelder walked, one day, down to the primitive post-office to see if the mail that was due from the little fishing port of Salina Cruz contained aught for him. Waded would better describe his progress, for it was the middle of the rains; water filled the air, dropping in sheets from a livid sky; the streets were rivers running full over the cobble curbs. Such white planters as came in occasionally from the jungle country had been housefast upon their plantations for this month, and, having the town pretty much to himself, the artist's thought turned naturally to Paul, who used to bring doubtful mitigation to his isolation.
He had written the artist twice, but now six months had elapsed since the last letter. "He'll never come back," the artist muttered. "Poor Andrea! But it is better—now."