a looked vexed for a moment,--she did not like to be
vanquished,--then shrugged her shoulders and leaned back in her chair.
The little room was plainly furnished. Shelves covered three sides,
and the window-seat and the table were littered with books. There were
no curtains, no ornaments; but Chonita's hair, billowing to the floor,
her slender voluptuous form, her white skin and green irradiating
eyes, the candlelight half revealing, half concealing, made a picture
requiring no background. I caught the expression of Estenega's face,
and determined to remain if he murdered me.

Peals of laughter, joyous shrieks, screams of mock terror, floated in
to us. I broke a silence which was growing awkward:

"How happy they are! Creatures of air and sunshine! Life in this
Arcadia is an idyl."

"They are not happy," said Estenega, contemptuously; "they are gay.
They are light of heart through absence of material cares and endless
sources of enjoyment, which in turn have bred a careless order of
mind. But did each pause long enough to look into his own heart, would
he not find a stone somewhere in its depths?--perhaps a skull graven
on the stone,--who knows?"

"Oh, Diego!" I exclaimed, impatiently, "this is a party, not a
funeral."

"Then is no one happy?" asked Chonita, wistfully.

"How can he be, when in each moment of attainment he is pricked by the
knowledge that it must soon be over? The youth is not happy, because
the shadow of the future is on him. The man is not happy, because the
knowledge of life's incompleteness is with him."

"Then of what use to live at all?"

"No use. It is no use to die, neither, so we live. I will grant that
there may be ten completely happy moments in life,--the ten conscious
moments preceding certain death--and oblivion."

"I will not discuss the beautiful hope of our religion with you,
because you do not believe, and I should only get angry. But what
are we to do with this life? You say nothing is wrong nor right. What
would you have the stumbling and unanchored do with what has been
thrust upon him?"

"Man, in his gropings down through the centuries, has concocted,
shivered, and patched certain social conditions well enough calculated
to develop the best and the worst that is in us, making it easier for
us to be bad than good, that good might be the standard. We feel a
deeper satisfaction if we have conquered an evil impulse and done
what is accepted as right, because we have groaned