other side of the corridor, but large and quiet.» A shrug and contemptuous nod was all I got for my pains from Senor Arriga. As I handed the keys to the bellboy, the girl threw back her black mantilla. «Any letters for us?» she asked quietly. For a minute I stood dumbfounded, enthralled, then, «I'll see,» I muttered and went to the rack, but only to give myself a countenance. I knew there were none. «None, I'm sorry to say,» I smiled, watching the girl as she moved away. «What's the matter with me?» I said to myself angrily. «She's nothing wonderful, this Miss Vidal; pretty, yes, and dark, with fine dark eyes, but nothing extraordinary.» It would not do; I was shaken in a new way and would not admit it even to myself.
In fact, the shock was so great that my head took sides against heart and temperament at once, as if alarmed. «All Spaniards are dark,» I said to myself, trying to depreciate the girl and so regain self-control, «besides, her nose is beaked a little.» But there was no conviction in my criticism. As soon as I recalled the proud grace of carriage and the magic of her glance, the fever-fit shook me again; for the first time my heart had been touched. Next day I found out that the Vidals had come from Spain and were on their way to their hacienda near Chihuahua in northern Mexico. They meant to rest in Chicago for three or four days because Senora Vidal had heart trouble and couldn't stand much fatigue. I discovered besides that Senor Arriga was either courting his cousin or betrothed to her, and at once I sought to make myself agreeable to the man. Senor Arriga was a fine billiards player and I took the nearest way to his heart by reserving for him the best table, getting him a fair opponent and complimenting him upon his skill. The next day Arriga opened his heart to me: «What is there to do in this dull hole?» Did I know of any amusement? Any pretty women? I could do nothing but pretend to sympathize and draw him out, and this I easily accomplished, for Senor Arriga loved to boast of his name and position in Mexico and his conquests. «Ah, you should have seen her as I led her in the baile (dance)-an angel!» and he kissed his fingers gallantly. «As pretty as your cousin?»
I ventured. Senor Arriga flashed a sharp suspicious glance at me, but apparently reassured by my frankness, went on: «In Mexico we never talk of members of our family,» he warned. «The Senorita is pretty, of course, but very young; she has not the charm of experience, the caress of-I know so little American, I find it difficult to explain.» But I was satisfied. «He doesn't love her,» I said to myself; «loves no one except himself.» In a thousand little ways I took occasion to commend myself to the Vidals.
Every afternoon they drove out and I took care they should have the best buggy and the best driver and was at pains to find out new and pretty drives, though goodness knows the choice was limited. The beauty of the girl grew on me in an extraordinary way; yet it was the pride and reserve in her face that fascinated me more even than her great dark eyes or fine features or splendid coloring. Her figure and walk were wonderful, I thought. I never dared to seek epithets for her eyes, or mouth, or neck. Her first appearance in evening dress was a revelation to me; she was my idol, enskied and sacred. It is to be presumed that the girl saw how it was with me and was gratified.
She made no sign, betrayed herself in no way, but her mother noticed that she was always eager to go downstairs to the lounge and missed no opportunity of making some inquiry at the desk. «I want to practice my English,» the girl said once, and the mother smiled: «Los ojos, you mean your eyes, my dear,» and added to herself: «But why not? Youth…» and sighed for her own youth now foregone, and the petals already fallen. One little talk I got with my goddess; she came to the office to ask about reserving a Pullman drawing room for El Paso. I undertook at once to see to everything, and when the dainty little lady added in her funny accent: «We have so many baggage, twenty-six bits,» I said as earnestly as if my life depended on it,
«Please trust me. I shall see to everything. I only wish,» I added, «I could do more for you.» «That's kind,» said the coquette, «very kind,» looking full at me. Emboldened by despair at her approaching departure, I added: «I'm so sorry you're going. I shall never forget you, never.» Taken aback by my directness, the girl laughed saucily, «Never means a week, I suppose.» «You will see,» I went on hurriedly, as if driven, as indeed I was. «If I thought I should not see you again and soon, I should not want to live.» «A declaration,» she laughed merrily, still looking me brightly in the face. «Not of independence,» I cried, «but of-» as I hesitated between «affection» and «love,» the girl put her finger to her lips.
«Hush, hush,» she said gravely, «you are too young to take vows and I must not listen»; but seeing my face fall, she added, «You have been very kind. I shall remember my stay in Chicago with pleasure,» and she stretched out her hand. I took it and held it treasuring every touch. Her look and the warmth of her ringers I garnered up in my heart as purest treasure. As soon as she had gone and the radiance with her, I cudgeled my brains to find some pretext for another talk. «She goes tomorrow,» hammered in my brain and my heartache choked me, almost prevented me from thinking. Suddenly the idea of flowers came to me. I'd buy a lot. No; everyone would notice them and talk. A few would be better. How many? I thought and thought.
When they came into the lounge next day ready to start, I was watching my opportunity, but the girl gave me a better one than I could have picked. She waited till her father and Arriga had left the hall and then came over to the desk. «You have ze checks?» she asked. «Everything will be given you at the train,» I said, «but I have these for you. Please accept them!» and I handed her three splendid red rosebuds, prettily tied up with maiden hair fern.
«How kind,» she exclaimed, coloring, «and how pretty,» she added, look-big at the roses. «Just three?» «One for your hair,» I said, with love's cunning, «one for your eyes and one for your heart-will you remember?» I added in a low voice intensely. She nodded and then looked up sparkling. «As long-as ze flowers last,» she laughed, and was back with her mother. I saw them into the omnibus and got kind words from all the party, even from Senor Arriga, but cherished most her look and word as she went out of the door. Holding it open for her, I murmured as she passed, for the others were within hearing: «I shall come soon.» The girl stopped at once, pretending to look at the tag on a trunk the porter was carrying. «El Paso is far away,» she sighed, «and the hacienda ten leagues further on. When shall we arrive-when?» she added, glancing up at me.
«When?» was the significant word to me for many a month; her eyes had filled it with meaning. I've told of this meeting with Miss Vidal at length because it marked an epoch in my life; it was the first time that love had cast her glamor over me, making beauty superlative, intoxicating. The passion rendered it easier for me to resist ordinary temptation, for it taught me there was a whole gorgeous world in love's kingdom that I had never imagined, much less explored. I had scarcely a lewd thought of Gloria. It was not till I saw her bared shoulders in evening dress that I stripped her in imagination and went almost wild in uncontrollable desire. Would she ever kiss me? What was she like undressed? My imagination was still untutored: I could picture her breasts better than her sex, and I made up my mind to examine the next girl I was lucky enough to see naked much more precisely. At the back of my mind was the fixed resolve to go to Chihuahua somehow or other in the near future and meet my charmer again, and that resolve in due course shaped my life anew.
In early June that year three strangers came to the hotel, all cattlemen I was told, of a new sort: Reece and Dell and Ford, the «Boss,» as he was called. Reece was a tall dark Englishman or rather Welshman, always dressed in brown leather riding boots, Bedford cord breeches and dark tweed cutaway coat: he looked a prosperous gentleman farmer; Dell was almost a copy of him in clothes, about middle height and sturdier-in fact an ordinary Englishman. The Boss was fully six feet tall, taller even than Reece, with a hatchet-thin, bronzed face and eagle profile-evidently a Western cattleman from head to foot. The head-waiter told me about them, and as soon as I saw them I had them transferred to a shady-cool table and saw that they were well waited on. A day or two afterwards we had made friends and a little later Reece got me measured for two pairs of cord breeches and had promised to teach me how to ride. They were cow-punchers, he said, with his strong English accent, and were going down to the Rio Grande to buy cattle and drive 'em back to market in Kansas City. Cattle, it appeared, could be bought in South Texas for a dollar a head or less and fetched from fifteen to twenty dollars each in Chicago. «Of course we don't always get through unscathed,» Reece remarked. «The plains Indians-Cherokees, Blackfeet and Sioux-take care of that; one herd in two gets through and that pays big.» I found they had brought up a thousand head of cattle from their ranch near Eureka, Kansas, and a couple of hundred head of horses. To cut a long story short, Reece fascinated me; he told me that Chihuahua was the Mexican province just across the Rio Grande from Texas, and at once I resolved to go on the trail with these cow-punchers, if they'd take me. In two or three days Reece told me I shaped better at riding than anyone he had ever seen, though he added, «When I saw your thick, short legs I thought you'd never make much of a hand at it.» But I was strong and had grown nearly six inches in my year in the States and I turned in my toes as Reece directed and hung on to the English saddle by the grip of my knees till I was both tired and sore. In a fortnight Reece made me put five-cent pieces between my knees and the saddle and keep them there when galloping or trotting. This practice soon made a rider of me so far as the seat was concerned, and I had already learned that Reece was a pastmaster in the
