“Haven’t I told you that I didn’t want to see you wear men’s clothes? Trousers are for men, just as skirts are for women. I won’t have a daughter of mine looking like a movie actress!”
Celinda received her father’s reproof with lowered eyes, and an air of graceful hypocrisy. Dutifully promising to dress as he required, she restrained the amusement his allusion caused her, for as a matter of fact, she scarcely ever thought of anything but those movie actresses in knickerbockers that figure so largely in American films; for their sake she had taken many a five hour gallop to Fuerte Sarmiento, the nearest town, where, on a sheet hung up in the only hotel, wandering film operators showed films which Celinda watched with breathless attention. It wasn’t that the stories were so interesting, but what a good idea they gave her of the prevailing styles!
As they lunched Don Carlos inquired of his daughter if she had been near the camp at the dam. How was the work getting on?
The hope, which daily grew brighter, of becoming rich again, had, of late, changed Rojas from the gloomy and discouraged man he had been for so many years, into one capable now of smiling once more. If the engineers of the Argentine government succeeded in damming the Rio Negro, the canals even then under construction, according to the plans of a fellow named Robledo and his partner, would irrigate the lands that these two engineers had bought; and since those lands adjoined his own, he, too, would benefit from the irrigation system, and the value of his property would go up by leaps and bounds.
Celinda listened to her father’s comments on the engineering work and its possible consequences for themselves with the indifference youth generally exhibits toward money matters. But the discourse of Don Rojas on riches and what could be done with them was cut short by the arrival of a mulatto of overflowing proportions, fat cheeked, with slanting eyes, her coarse black hair gathered into a thick braid that undulated along the elevations and declivities of her back and then hung free, endeavoring apparently to reach the ground.
Before coming into the dining room she deposited a bag full of clothes at the door. Then she made a rush for Celinda, kissed her, and even spattered some of her tears over her:
“My pretty little one! My baby, my own little Señorita!”
When Celinda first came to the ranch the mulatto had been hired to take care of her, and it had been a real hardship for the woman to leave the girl. But she had never been able to get on with Don Carlos. The rancher was abrupt in his manner of giving orders, and would take no argument from women, especially when they had reached a certain age.
“The boss is a gay old boy,” Sebastiana confided to her friends. “I’m getting too old for him, and it’s the younger ones that catch all the smiles and pretty speeches, while all I get is sharp words and threats of the rebenque!”
When she had finished exclaiming over Celinda, the mulatto looked at Don Carlos with an indignation that was comical in effect.