As I entered the inn door, Mickie forward to inform me, with an air of vast importance, that at the request of the Spanish , he had arranged to serve the evening meal to the señor's party above stairs. When he added that a plate was to be laid for myself, I hastened to my own room for a change of .
My heart was too heavy for me to linger over details of dress. It was not long before I found myself at the door of the room set apart for the private dining-parlor. Chita, who was overlooking the spreading of the cloth by the negro attendants of the inn, conducted me through to the balcony, where I found the don indolently at his cigarro.
Before I could take the seat to which he waved me, Alisanda floated out into the moonlight from the window behind him. She was a vision all heavenly white but for her lips and sombre eyes and brows. Even the soft tresses of her hair were hidden beneath the gauzy white drape of tulle and lace which took the place of her black mantilla.
"Buenas noches, Juan," she greeted me, in a tone of liquid silver.
"God be with you, Alisanda!" I responded.
"Be seated, amigo," urged Don Pedro. "You have a weary look."
"I bring what to me is heavy news," I replied.
"You had in mind to ask a favor of General Wilkinson," said Alisanda. "You have asked the favor, and—he has refused it?"
The note of sympathy in her voice my despairing anger. I did not stop to wonder at the intuition by which she had divined the object of my visit to the General. It was enough for me that she had perceived my heaviness, and held out to me her sympathy.
"It is true," I said, and in a few words I told them of my shattered plans,—how I had hoped to gain fame by leading an expedition of exploration to the West, as Lewis and Clark were exploring the Northwest, and as my friend Pike had explored the headwaters of the Mississippi; and how the statements of Colonel Burr had led me to hope for still greater fame as a sharer in the freeing of Mexico.
Don Pedro leaned toward me, his eyes glowing with friendly fire. "Por Dios! Your one thought was to help us break the ! You would give your life for the winning of liberty!"
I looked across at Alisanda, and the soft loveliness of her beauty in the moonlight filled me to with the bitterness of my blasted hopes.
"Do not think me so noble!" I replied. "I thought to fight for the freedom of your country, but it was in hope of a reward a thousandfold greater than my service!"
Alisanda raised her fan and gazed at me above its edge with widened eyes,—I feared in resentful wonder at my . But Don Pedro was too intent upon his own thoughts to perceive the meaning of my words.
"Por Dios!" he protested. "Those who have risen against Spanish oppression have ever met with short shrift. Shall not they who brave death in our cause look for glorious reward in the hour of victory?"
"That is true of those who may be blessed with the chance to join your ranks. As for me, the opportunity which I had thought to be golden has turned to ashes in my grasp."
"Sabe Dios!" murmured Alisanda in so soft a tone that the words came to me like a whisper of the evening breeze. Was it possible that after all I still had cause for hope?
Chita's voice, drawling the usual Spanish phrase, summoned us to the table. We rose, and Alisanda accepted my arm with a queenly graciousness of manner which in the same moment thrilled and disheartened me. I read it to mean that she was in a mood, but that the was due to the of Señorita Vallois, and not to the frank companionship of my fellow-traveller Alisanda. This was borne out by her manner at table, where she rallied her uncle and myself upon our gravity, and with subtle skill, confined the talk to the lightest of topics. The Don was as as most of his countrymen, and Mickie's wine was a libel on the name, yet he soon to the gay chit-chat of his niece.
It was beyond me to enter into this spirit of merriment. I forced myself to smile outwardly and to meet their lively quips and sallies with such nimbleness of wit as I . But it went no deeper than show on my part. The longer we sat, the heavier grew my heart. I had no joy of my food. Even the peaches and the other fruits of the lower river tasted bitter in my mouth. For with each fresh turn of the conversation I saw my Alisanda slipping farther away from me, her kindly glance giving place to the gaze of the Spanish lady of blood, her familiar address cooling to stately condescension. I was no longer "Juan," but "doctor" and "señor," and, near the end, "Doctor Robinson."
We had come to the sweetmeats, and I with despair that she was on the point of withdrawing. She had even thrust back her chair to rise, when, with ceremony, a young soldier in uniform entered and stated that His Excellency, General Wilkinson, desired the presence of Señor Vallois.
"Carambo!" exclaimed Don Pedro, looking regretfully at the sweetmeats. "He might have chosen a fitter time! It is in my mind to wait."
"Is not your business with him the affair of others no less than your own?" murmured Alisanda.
"Santisima Virgen! You do well to remind me! Juan, with your permission—"
"Adios! Good fortune to you!" I cried, as he rose.
Another moment and he and the soldier had left the room. I was alone with Alisanda. She rose, with a trace of inquietude beneath her calm . I moved around the table to join her.
"Spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "It is unkind to take a man of English blood from his wine."
"Señorita," I answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the country. I do not wonder. Our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end. There is no longer need for such slight service as I was able to render—"
"Service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip.
Though cut to the quick, I could not give over.
"Alisanda," I said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days since we met on the Monongahela?"
She raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose of hair down her cheek.
"Santisima Virgen!" she murmured, with fine-drawn . "It has ever been a to me—so chance a meeting."
"Chance, indeed!" I replied. "Chance that the utmost of my effort could not trace the road by which you left Washington; chance that Colonel Burr gave me the clew for which I sought; chance that of the nine horses I rode to a stand between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, none failed me in my need."
She gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "Madre de los Dolores! What a pity! A little time, and the will roll between."
"I will cross that gulf!"
"Not so; for it is the gulf of the Cross," she mocked. "I go the way of Vera Cruz—the True Cross. No heretic may pass that way."
The words struck down my last hope. It was the truth—a double truth. The way of my body was barred by the city of the Cross; the way of my spirit by that which to her the Cross .
"So this is the end," I replied. "We have come to the parting of the ways. Do not fear that I shall weary you with annoying . I shall go my way before sunrise to-morrow. Only—let me ask that this last hour with you may hold its share of sweetness with the bitterness of parting,—Alisanda!"
"An hour?" she repeated. "The air in here is close."
She laid her fingers lightly upon my arm, and we passed out into the moonlit balcony. For a time we sat silent, she gazing out across the broken slopes of the town, I gazing at her still white face and shadowy eyes. Her loveliness was part with the night and the moonlight and the scarlet bloom of the climber upon the balcony rail.
At last I could no longer endure the thought that she was lost to me; I could no longer deny to my love and .
"Alisanda! dearest one! Is there then no hope that I may win you? I have no speeches—my love is voiceless; no less is it a love that shall endure always. Alisanda! my dearest one! is my love of no worth to you? Let your heart speak! Can it not give me one word of hope?"
My voice failed me. Throughout my appeal I failed to see the slightest change in her calm face. I had failed to stir her even to mockery. Truly all was now at an end! I bowed my head and in most unmanly fashion.
The low of her voice roused me to despairing eagerness. She in a tone of light inconsequence, yet I seized upon the words as the drowning man clutches at straws.
"Love?—love?" she repeated. "The word has become a jest. Men protest that they know the meaning of love—that they suffer its bitterest . Yet speak to them of the days of , when gallant
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