“I understand.”
“A young man of my age, he told me, should have a wife, a mistress of his household, and should—er—have offspring to inherit and preserve an illustrious name.”
“Nothing could be truer than that,” said Don Carlos.
“So I have decided to get me a wife.”
“Ha! It is something every man should do, Don Diego. Well do I remember when I courted Doña Catalina. We were mad to get into each other’s arms, but her father kept her from me for a time. I was only seventeen, though, so perhaps he did right. But you are nearly twenty-five. Get you a bride, by all means.”
“And so I have come to see you about it,” Don Diego said.
“To see me about it?” gasped Don Carlos, with something of fear and a great deal of hope in his breast.
“It will be rather a bore, I expect. Love and marriage, and all that sort of thing, is rather a necessary nuisance in its way. The idea of a man of sense running about a woman, playing a guitar for her, making up to her like a loon when everyone knows his intention!
“And then the ceremony! Being a man of wealth and station, I suppose the wedding must be an elaborate one, and the natives will have to be feasted, and all that, simply because a man is taking a bride to be mistress of his household.”
“Most young men,” Don Carlos observed, “delight to win a woman, and are proud if they have a great and fashionable wedding.”
“No doubt. But it is an awful nuisance. However, I will go through with it, señor. It is my father’s wish, you see. You—if you will pardon me again—have fallen upon evil days. That is the result of politics, of course. But you are of excellent blood, señor, of the best blood in the land.”
“I thank you for remembering that truth!” said Don Carlos, rising long enough to put one hand over his heart and bow.
“Everybody knows it, señor. And a Vega, naturally, when he takes a mate, must seek out a woman of excellent blood.”
“To be sure!” Don Carlos exclaimed.
“You have an only daughter, the Señorita Lolita.”
“Ah! Yes, indeed, señor. Lolita is eighteen now, and a beautiful and accomplished girl, if her father is the man to say it.”
“I have observed her at the mission and at the pueblo,” Don Diego said. “She is, indeed, beautiful, and I have heard that she is accomplished. Of her birth and breeding there can be no doubt. I think she would be a fit woman to preside over my household.”
“Señor?”
“That is the object of my visit today, señor.”
“You—you are asking my permission to pay addresses to my fair daughter?”
“I am, señor.”
Don Carlos’s face beamed, and again he sprang from his chair, this time to bend forward and grasp Don Diego by the hand.
“She is a fair flower,” the father said. “I would see her wed, and I have been to some anxiety about it, for I did not wish her to marry into a family that did not rank with mine. But there can be no question where a Vega is concerned. You have my permission, señor.”
Don Carlos was delighted. An alliance between his daughter and Don Diego Vega! His fortunes were retrieved the moment that was consummated. He would be important and powerful again!
He called a native and sent for his wife, and within a few minutes the Doña Catalina appeared on the veranda to greet the visitor, her face beaming, for she had been listening.
“Don Diego has done us the honor to request permission to pay his respects to our daughter,” Don Carlos explained.
“You have given consent?” Doña Catalina asked: for it would not do, of course, to jump for the man.
“I have given my consent,” Don Carlos replied.
Doña Catalina held out her hand, and Don Diego gave it a languid grasp and then released it.
“Such an alliance would be a proud one,” Doña Catalina said. “I hope that you may win her heart, señor.”
“As to that,” said Don Diego, “I trust there will be no undue nonsense. Either the lady wants me and will have me, or she will not. Will I change her mind if I play a guitar beneath her window, or hold her hand when I may, or put my hand over my heart and sigh? I want her for wife, else I would not have ridden here to ask her father for her.”
“I—I—of course!” said Don Carlos.
“Ah, señor, but a maid delights to be won,” said the Doña Catalina. “It is her privilege, señor. The hours of courtship are held in memory during her lifetime. She remembers the pretty things her lover said, and the first kiss, when they stood beside the stream and looked into each other’s eyes, and when he showed sudden fear for her while they were riding and her horse bolted—those things, señor.
“It is like a little game, and it has been played since the beginning of time. Foolish, señor? Perhaps when a person looks at it with cold reason. But delightful, nevertheless.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Don Diego protested. “I never ran around making love to women.”
“The woman you marry will not be sorry because of that, señor.”
“You think it is necessary for me to do these things?”
“Oh,” said Don Carlos, afraid of losing an influential son-in-law, “a little bit would not hurt. A maid likes to be wooed, of course, even though she has made up her mind.”
“I have a servant who is a wonder at the guitar,” Don Diego said. “Tonight I shall order him to come out and play beneath the señorita’s window.”
“And not come yourself?” Doña Catalina gasped.
“Ride out here again tonight, when the chill wind blows in from the sea?” gasped Don Diego. “It would kill me. And the native plays the guitar better than I.”
“I never heard of such a thing!” Doña Catalina gasped, her sense of the fitness
