“Let Don Diego do as he wills,” Don Carlos urged.
“I had thought,” said Don Diego, “that you would arrange everything and then let me know. I would have my house put in order, of course, and get me more servants. Perhaps I should purchase a coach and drive with my bride as far as Santa Barbara and visit a friend there. Is it not possible for you to attend to everything else? Just merely send me word when the wedding is to be.”
Don Carlos Pulido was nettled a little himself now.
“Caballero,” he said, “when I courted Doña Catalina she kept me on needles and pins. One day she would frown, and the next day smile. It added a spice to the affair. I would not have had it different. You will regret it, señor, if you do not do your own courting. Would you like to see the señorita now?”
“I suppose I must,” Don Diego said.
Doña Catalina threw up her head and went into the house to fetch the girl; and soon she came, a dainty little thing with black eyes that snapped, and black hair that was wound around her head in a great coil, and dainty little feet that peeped from beneath skirts of bright hue.
“I am happy to see you again, Don Diego,” she said.
He bowed over her hand and assisted her to one of the chairs.
“You are as beautiful as you were when I saw you last,” he said.
“Always tell a señorita that she is more beautiful than when you saw her last,” groaned Don Carlos. “Ah, that I were young again and could make love anew!”
He excused himself and entered the house, and Doña Catalina moved to the other end of the veranda, so that the pair could talk without letting her hear the words, but from where she could watch, as a good dueña always must.
“Señorita,” Don Diego said, “I have asked your father this morning for permission to seek you in marriage.”
“Oh, señor!” the girl gasped.
“Do you think I would make a proper husband?”
“Why, I—that is—”
“Just say the word, señorita, and I shall tell my father, and your family will make arrangements for the ceremony. They can send word in to me by some native. It fatigues me to ride abroad when it is not at all necessary.”
Now the pretty eyes of the Señorita Lolita began flashing warning signals, but Don Diego, it was evident, did not see them, and so he rushed forward to his destruction.
“Shall you agree to becoming my wife, señorita?” he asked, bending slightly toward her.
Señorita Lolita’s face burned red, and she sprang from her chair, her tiny fists clenched at her side.
“Don Diego Vega,” she replied, “you are of a noble family, and have much wealth, and will inherit more. But you are lifeless, señor! Is this your idea of courtship and romance? Can you not take the trouble to ride four miles on a smooth road to see the maid you would wed? What sort of blood is in your veins, señor?”
Doña Catalina heard that, and now she rushed across the veranda toward them, making signals to her daughter, which Señorita Lolita refused to see.
“The man who weds me must woo me and win my love,” the girl went on. “He must touch my heart. Think you that I am some bronze native wench to give myself to the first man who asks? The man who becomes my husband must be a man with life enough in him to want me. Send your servant to play a guitar beneath my window? Oh, I heard, señor! Send him, señor, and I’ll throw boiling water upon him and bleach his red skin! Buenas dias, señor!”
She threw up her head proudly, lifted her silken skirts aside, and so passed him to enter the house, disregarding her mother also. Doña Catalina moaned once for her lost hopes. Don Diego Vega looked after the disappearing señorita, and scratched at his head thoughtfully, and glanced toward his horse.
“I—I believe she is displeased with me,” he said, in his timid voice.
VII
A Different Sort of Man
Don Carlos lost no time in hurrying out to the veranda again—since he had been listening and so knew what had happened—and endeavoring to placate the embarrassed Don Diego Vega. Though there was consternation in his heart, he contrived to chuckle and make light of the occurrence.
“Women are fitful and filled with fancies, señor,” he said. “At times they will rail at those whom they in reality adore. There is no telling the workings of a woman’s mind—she cannot explain it with satisfaction herself.”
“But I—I scarcely understand,” Don Diego gasped. “I used my words with care. Surely I said nothing to insult or anger the señorita!”
“She would be wooed, I take it, in the regular fashion. Do not despair, señor. Both her mother and myself have agreed that you are a proper man for her husband. It is customary that a maid fight off a man to a certain extent, and then surrender. It appears to make the surrender the sweeter. Perhaps the next time you visit us she will be more agreeable. I feel quite sure of it!”
So Don Diego shook hands with Don Carlos Pulido and mounted his horse and rode slowly down the trail; and Don Carlos turned about and entered his house again and faced his wife and daughter, standing before the latter with his hands on his hips and regarding her with something akin to sorrow.
“He is the greatest catch in all the country!” Doña Catalina was wailing; and she dabbed at her eyes with a delicate square of filmy lace.
“He has wealth and position and could mend my broken fortunes if he were but my son-in-law,” Don Carlos declared, not taking his eyes from his daughter’s face.
“He has a magnificent house, and a hacienda besides, and the best horses near Reina de Los Angeles, and he is sole heir to his
