morning,
and the old women who dressed the body swore that there were marks of
hard skinny fingers on her throat. Estenega had made no secret of his
admiration of her. At different times girls of the people had left
Monterey suddenly, and vague rumors had floated down from the North
that they had been seen in the redwood forests where Estenega's
ranchos lay. I asked him, point-blank, one day, if these stories were
true, prepared to scold him as he deserved; and he remarked coolly
that stories of that sort were always exaggerated, as well as a man's
success with women. But one had only to look at that face, with its
expression of bitter-humorous knowledge, its combination of strength
and weakness, to feel sure that there were chapters in his life that
no woman outside of them would ever read. I always felt, when with
Diego Estenega, that I was in the presence of a man who had little
left to learn of life's phases and sensations.

"The sun will freckle thy white neck," he said to the matron who would
not raise her eyes.

"Shall I bring thy mantilla, Dona Carmen?"

She looked up with a swift blush, then lowered her soft black eyes
suddenly before the penetrating gaze of the man who was so different
from the caballeros.

"It is not well to be too vain, senor. We must think less of those
things and more of--our Church."

"True; the Church may be a surer road to heaven than a good
complexion, if less of a talisman on earth. Still I doubt if a
freckled Virgin would have commanded the admiration of the centuries,
or even of the Holy Ghost."

"Don Diego! Don Diego!" cried a dozen horrified voices.

"Diego Estenega, if it were any man but thou," I exclaimed, "I would
have thee excommunicated. Thou blasphemer! How couldst thou?"

Diego raised my threatening hand to his lips. "My dear Eustaquia, it
was merely a way of saying that woman should be without blemish. And
is not the Virgin the model for all women?"

"Oh," I exclaimed, impatiently, "thou canst plant an idea in people's
minds, then pluck it out before their very eyes and make them believe
it never was there. That is thy power,--but not over me. I know thee."
We were standing apart, and I had dropped my voice. "But come and talk
to me awhile. I cannot stand those babies," and I indicated with a
sweep of my fan the graceful, richly-dressed caballeros whose soft
drooping eyes and sensuous mouths were more promising of compliments
than conversation. "Neither Alvara