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CHAPTER XXXII

There was no pomp of leave-taking about Mariquita's departure for Loretto. She was only going on a visit, and would return.

"Whatever you decide upon," Sarella insisted, "you must come back for your father's wedding."

Mariquita promised, and went away, her father driving her all the way to Loretto in the auto. Her departure did not move him much, though he would have been better pleased, after all, if she were going away to a husband's house. Sarella, watching them disappear in the distance, felt it more than the stoical old half-breed.

"I shall miss her," she said to herself; "I like her better than I thought I should. She's as straight as an arrow, and as true as gold. I suppose this watch is gold; he'd never dare to give me rolled gold… Only nine o'clock. It will be a long day, and I shall miss her all the time. Quiet as she is, it will make a lot of difference. No one has such a nice way of laughing, when she does laugh. I wonder if she guesses how little her father cares? He won't miss her much. Some men care never a pin for a woman unless they want to marry her. He has no use for the others. I expect it makes them good husbands, though. Poor Mariquita! I think I should have hated him if I had been her. It never occurred to her; at first I thought she must be an A-Number-One hypocrite, she seemed to think him so exactly all that he ought to be to her. Then I thought she must be stupid – I soon saw she was as sincere as a baby. But she's not stupid either. She's just Mariquita; she really does see only the things she ought to see, and it's queer. I never saw anyone else that way. I thought at first she must be jealous of me, the old man put her so completely on one side, and made such a lot of me. Any other girl would have been. I soon saw she wasn't; it never entered her head that he might leave me money that ought to be hers – it would have entered mine, I know. But 'she never thought of that,' as she used to say about everything." Oddly enough, it was at this particular recollection that a certain dewy brightness (that became them well) glistened in Sarella's pretty eyes.

"Well," she thought, "I'm glad I can call to mind that I did the best I could for her. It made me feel just sick to think of the old man brow-beating and bullying her. I saw a big hulking fellow beat his little girl once, and I felt just the same, only I could do nothing then but scream. I was a child myself, and I did scream, and I bit him. I'm glad I did bite him, though I was spanked for it. I suppose I'll have to confess biting him, though I don't call it a sin. What on earth can Mariquita confess? At first her goodness put my back up. But I wish she was back. It never occurs to her that she's good. I soon found that out. And she thinks everyone else as good as gold. She thinks all these cowboys good, and she does almost make them want to be. It was funny that she didn't dislike me. (I should have if I'd been in her place.) When she kissed me good-bye and said 'Sarella, we'll never forget each other,' it meant more than pounds of candy-talk from another girl. Forget her! Not I. Will Gore? He will never think any other girl her equal. Mrs. Gore may make up her mind to that. Perhaps he'll marry someone not half so good as himself and rather like it. Pfush! It feels lonesome now. I often used to get into my own room to get out of Mariquita's way, and stretch the legs of my mind over a novel. I wish she was here now…"

And Sarella did not speedily give over missing Mariquita. She was a girl who on principle preferred men's society to that of other women, but in practice had considerable need of female companionship. She liked to make men admire her, but she did not much care to be admired by the cowboys, and took it for granted that they already admired her as much as befitted their inferior position. She had always been too shrewd to try and make other women admire her, but she liked talking to them about clothes, which no man understands; and, though Mariquita had been careless about her own sumptuous affairs, she had been a wonderfully appreciative (or long-suffering) listener when Sarella talked about hers.

"And after all," Sarella confessed, "she had taste. My style would not have suited her. That plain style of her own was best for her."

When Don Joaquin returned from Denver he seemed unlike himself, almost subdued. He had been much impressed by the great convent and its large community; the nuns had made much of him, and of Mariquita. They spoke in a way that at last put it into his head that he had under-valued her; there is nothing for awaking our appreciation of our own near relations like the sudden perception that other people think greatly of them. Gore's respect and admiration for his daughter had not done much, for he had only looked upon it as the blind predilection of a young man in love with a beautiful girl. Several of the nuns, including their Reverend Mother, had spoken to him apart, in Mariquita's absence, not immediately on his and her arrival, but on the evening of the following day; on the morrow he was to depart on his return to the range, and in these conversations the Sisters let him plainly see that they regarded the girl as peculiarly graced by God, and of rarely high and noble character.

He asked the Superior if she thought Mariquita would wish to stay with them and become one of themselves.

"No," was the answer. "She is a born Contemplative. Every nun must be a contemplative in some degree, but I use the word in its common sense. I mean that I believe she will find herself called to an Order of pure Contemplatives. She will make a Retreat here, and very likely will be shown during it what is God's will for her."

It surprised the kind and warm-hearted Religious that he did not inquire whether that life were not very hard. But she took charitable refuge in the supposition that he knew so little about one Order or another as to be free from the dread that his child might have a life of great austerity before her.

"You may be sure," she said, in case later on any such affectionate misgiving should trouble him, "that she will be happy. Unseen by you or us she will do great things for God and His children. You shall share in it by giving her to Him when He calls. She is your only child ("As yet," thought Don Joaquin, even now more concerned for her brother, than for her) and God will reward your generosity. He never lets Himself be outstripped in that. For the gift of Abraham's son He blest his whole race."

Don Joaquin knew very little about Abraham, but he understood that all the Jews since his time had been notably successful in finance.

It did not cause him any particular emotion to leave his daughter. She was being left where she liked to be, and would doubtless be at home among these holy women who seemed to think so much of her, and to be so fond of her. He had forgiven her for wishing to be a nun and thought highly of himself for having given his permission.

The nuns thought he concealed his feelings to spare Mariquita's, and praised God for the unselfishness of parents.

Mariquita had never expected tenderness from him, but she thought him a good man and a good father, and was very grateful for his concession in abandoning his insistence on her marriage, and sanctioning her choice of her own way of life. And he did embrace her on parting, and bade God bless her, reminding her that it would be her duty to pray much for himself and Sarella. At the range he found a letter, which had arrived late on the day on which he had left home with her, and this letter he took as a proof that she had prayed to some purpose. The dispensation was granted and he could now fix his marriage for any date he chose.

"Did she send me her love?" Sarella asked, jealous of being at all forgotten.

"Yes, twice; and when I kissed her she said, 'Kiss Sarella for me.' Also she sent you a letter."

Sarella received very few letters and liked getting them. She was rather curious to see what sort of letter Mariquita would write, and made up her mind it would be "nunnish and poky."

Whether "nunnish" or no, it was not "poky," but pleasant, very cheerful and bright, and very affectionate. It contained little jokish allusions to home matters, and former confidential talks, and one passage (much valued by Sarella) concerning a gown, retracting a former opinion and substituting another backed by most valid reasons. "If those speckled hens go on eating each other's feathers," said the letter, "you'll have to kill them and eat them. Once they start they never give it up, and it puts the idea in the others' heads. Feathers don't suit everybody, but fowls look wicked without them. I hope poor old Jack doesn't miss me; give him and Ginger my love, and ask him to forgive me for not marrying Mr. Gore – he gave me a terrible lecture about it, and Ginger said, 'Quit it, Dad! I knew she wouldn't. I know sweethearts when I see them – though I never did see one – not of my own.' I expect Larry Burke will show her one soon, don't you, Sarella? It will do very well; Larry will have the looks and Ginger will have the sense, and teach him all he needs. He has such a good heart he can get on without too much sense…"

Sarella liked her letter, and decided that Mariquita was not lost, though removed.

CHAPTER XXXIII

"I suppose," Don Joaquin remarked in a disengaged manner, "that, after all your preparations, we can fix the day for our wedding any time now."

Sarella was not in the least taken in by his elaborate air of having been able, for his part, to have fixed a day long ago.

It was, however, part of her system to fall in with people's whimsies when nothing was to be gained by opposing or exposing them.

"Oh, yes," she agreed, most amiably. "It will take three Sundays to publish the banns – any day after that. Meanwhile I should be received. Sister Aquinas says I am ready. As soon as we have settled the exact time, we must let Mariquita know, and you can, when the time comes, go over and fetch her home."

Don Joaquin consented, and Sarella thought she would go and deliver Mariquita's message to Jack and his daughter. She found them together and began by saying, smilingly:

"I expect you have known for a long while that there was a marriage in the air?"

Old Jack had not learned to like her, and Ginger still disliked her smile.

"I don't believe," she said perversely, for, of course, both she and her father understood perfectly, "that Miss Mariquita is going to be married. She's not that way."

This was a discouraging opening, for it seemed to cast a sort of slur on young women who were likely to be married.

"Mr. Gore's never asked again!" cried Jack.

"Dad, don't you be silly," Ginger suggested; "everyone knows Miss Mariquita wants to be a nun."

"Yes," said Sarella with impregnable amiability, "but we can't all be nuns. Miss Mariquita doesn't seem to think you likely to be one. She sent me back by her father such a nice letter. She sends Jack and you her love, and, though she doesn't send Larry Burke her love, thinking of you evidently makes her think of him."

Ginger visibly relaxed, and her father stared appallingly with his one eye.

"Good Lord!" quoth he in more sincere than flattering astonishment.

"Well, he is good," Ginger observed cooly, "and there's worse folk than Larry Burke, or me either."

"Miss Mariquita thinks it would be such a good thing for him," Sarella reported. "So must any one."

Ginger felt that this, after her unpleasantness to the young lady who brought the message, was handsome.

"He might do better," she declared, "and he might do worse."

"Has he said anything?" her father inquired with undisguised incredulity.

"What he's said is nothing," Ginger calmly replied. "It's what I think as matters. He's no Cressote, but he's got a bit – or ought, if he hasn't spent it. I'd keep his money together for him, and he'd soon find it a saving. And I could do with him – for if his head's soft so's his heart. I think, Dad," she concluded, willing "to take it out" of her father for his unflattering incredulity, "you may as well, when Miss Sarella's gone, tell him to step round. I'll soon fix it."

"I couldn't do that," Jack expostulated.

"Why not?" Ginger demanded with fell determination.

"I really don't see why you shouldn't," Sarella protested, much amused though not betraying it. "It's all for his good," she added seriously.

Jack was shaken, but not yet disposed to obedience.

"Larry," Sarella urged, "won't be so much surprised as you think. Miss Mariquita, you see, wants him and Ginger to make a match of it – "

"But does he?" Jack pleaded, moved by Mariquita's opinion, but not so sure it would reduce Larry to subjection.

"Tut!" said Ginger impatiently. "What's he to do with it? If he don't know what's best for him, I do. So does Miss Sarella. So does Miss Mariquita."

"And," Sarella added, "you may be sure Miss Mariquita would never have said a word about it if she hadn't felt pretty sure it was to come off. She's never been one to be planning marriages. Why, Larry must have made it as plain as a pikestaff that he was ready, or she would never have guessed it."

The weight of this argument left Jack defenseless.

"Hadn't you better wait, Ginger," he attempted to argue with shallow subtlety; "he's like enough to step round after supper. Then I'd clear, and you could say when you liked."

"No," Ginger decided, "I'm tired of him stepping round after supper, just to chatter. He'd be prepared if you told him I'd said he was to come. He'd know something was wanted. In fact, you'd better tell him."

"Tell him? Me? Tell him what?"

"Just that I'd made up my mind to say 'yes' if he'd a question to ask me."

"Why," cried Jack, aghast, "he'd get on his horse and scoot."

"Not far," Ginger opined, entirely unmoved. "He'd ride back. He's not pluck enough to be such a coward as to scoot for good. Just you try."

The two women drove the battered old fellow off, Ginger laughed and said:

"Aren't men helpless?"

Sarella was full of admiration of her prowess.

"Well, you're not," she said.

"Not me. But, Dad won't find Larry as much surprised as he thinks. It's been in the silly chap's head (or where folks keep their ideas that have no head) this three weeks. I saw, though he never said a lot – "

Overpowered by curiosity, Sarella asked boldly what he did say.

"Oh, just rubbish," Ginger answered laughing; "you're as clean as a tablet of scented soap, anyway," says he, first. Then he said, "Ginger, I've known pretty girls with hair not near so nice as yours – not a quarter so much of it." Another time he asked if I kept a tooth-brush. "I thought so," says he, quite loving; "your teeth's as white as nuts with the brown skin off, and as regular as a row of tombstones in an undertaker's window. I never did mind freckles as true as I stand here …" and stuff like that. But the strongest ever he said was, "Pastry! What's pastry when a woman don't know how to make it. I'd as soon eat second-hand toast. Yours, Ginger, is like what the angels make, I should say, at Thanksgiving for the little angels.'"

"Did he, really!" said Sarella, feeling quite sure that Larry would not "scoot."

"I told him," Ginger explained calmly, that if he didn't quit such senseless talk he'd never get any more of my pastry. He looked so down that I gave him a slice of pumpkin pie when he was leaving. "The pastry," says I, "will mind you of me, and the pumpkin of yourself." But he got his own back, for he just grinned and said, "Yes, I'll think o' them together, Ginger, for the pie and the pumpkin belongs together, don't they?"

Sarella laughed and expressed her belief that after all Jack's embassy was rather superfluous.

"Maybe so. But I knew he'd hate it, and he deserved it for seeming so unbelieving. If my mother had been lovely I'd have been born plain; it's not him as should think me too ugly for any young fellow to fancy. I daresay I shouldn't have decided to take Larry if Miss Mariquita hadn't sent that message. I was afraid she'd think me a fool. Here's Larry coming round the corner, looking as if he'd been stealing his mother's sugar."

"He's only thinking of your pastry," said Sarella. "I'll slip off. May I be told when it's all settled?"

"Yes, certainly, Miss Sarella, and I'm sure I wish all that's best to the Boss and yourself. It's not everyone could manage him, but you will. Poor Miss Mariquita never could. She was too good."

With these mixed compliments Sarella had to content herself.

CHAPTER XXXIV

When she answered Mariquita's letter she was to report not only the judicial end of the plumiverous and specked hens, but the betrothal of Larry Burke and Ginger. "Nothing," she wrote, "but his dread of your displeasure could have overcome his dread of what the other cowboys would say on hearing of his proposing. After all, he has more sense than some sharp fellows who follow at last the advice they know is worth least…"

In her next letter Sarella said:

"I am to be made a Catholic on Monday next; so when you're saying your prayers (and that's all day) you can be thinking of me. Perhaps I gave in to it first to satisfy your father; but even then I thought 'if it makes me a bit more like Mariquita he'll get a better bargain in me.' I shan't ever be at all like you, but I shall be of the same Religion as you, and I know by this time that it will do me good. It's all a bit too big for me to understand, but I like what I do understand, and Sister Aquinas says I shall grow into it. Clothes, she says, fit better when they're worn a bit, and sit easier. She says, 'It has changed you, my dear child, already; you are gentler, and kinder.' She said another thing, 'Your husband has been a Catholic all his life, but you will gradually make him a better one. He is a very sensible man, and he can't see you learning to be a Catholic and not want to learn what it really means himself. He is too honest.' She likes your father a lot, and never bothers him. 'I know,' she said, 'you will not bother him either. Some earnest Catholics do bother their men-folks terribly about religious things – and for all the good they seem to do, might be only half as earnest and have a better effect.' I make my First Communion the day after I'm received. And, Mariquita, my dear, we are to be married that day week. Your father will fetch you home, and mind, mind, you come. I should never forgive you if you didn't. Shall I have Ginger for a bridesmaid? I know some brides do choose ugly ones to make themselves look better. The cowboys (this is a dead secret told me by Ginger) have subscribed to give us a wedding-present. I hope it won't be one of those clocks like black-marble monuments with a round gilt eye in it. I expect the cowboys laugh at both these marriages. But they rather like them. They make a lark, and they never do dislike anything they can laugh at. They certainly all look twice as amiably at me when we meet about the place since they knew I was going to be married. And Ginger finds them so friendly and pleasant I expect she thinks she might, if she had liked, have married the lot. But that's different. I daresay you notice that I write more cheerfully, now it is settled. Yes, I do. I like him a great deal more than at first. It began when he gave in about what you wanted. I really believe I shall make him happy – and I fancy I think of that more – I mean less of his making me happy. And, Mariquita, it is good of me to have wanted you to be let alone to be a nun if you thought it right, because, oh dear, how I should like you to be living near or at the next range! Before I got to know you, it was just the opposite. I hoped you'd get a husband of your own and quit; I did. I thought you'd hate your father marrying again, and (if you stayed on here) would be looking disapproval all day long, and perhaps I thought you would not be best pleased at not getting all his money when he died. (I think when people go to Confession they ought to confess things like that. Do they?) Oh, Mariquita, you will be missed. But I'd rather miss you, and know you were being what you felt yourself called away to, than think I had helped to have you interfered with…"

Mariquita, reading Sarella's letter, felt something new in her life, something strangely moving, that filled her eyes and heart with something also new – happy tears. The free gift of tenderness came newly to her; and, it may be, she had least of all looked for it from Sarella.

"'Do people,' she quoted to herself from Sarella herself, 'confess these things?' I will, anyway."

It hurt her to think that she who so loved justice and charity, must have been both uncharitable and unjust.

But can we agree? Had not Sarella's unforeseen tenderness been her own gift to her? Had Sarella brought tenderness with her from the East?

At the stranger's first coming Mariquita had not judged but felt her, and her feeling (of which she herself knew very little) had been instinctively correct while it lasted.