"I have had no difficulties with Don Jose Santierra," he said, somewhat coldly ignoring her hilarity, "but perhaps he is not inclined to be as polite to the friend of the husband as he is to the wife.""Mr.Poindexter!" said Mrs.Tucker quickly, her face becoming pale again.
"I beg your pardon!" said Poindexter, flushing; "but--""You want to say," she interrupted coolly, "that you are not friends, I see.Is that the reason why you have avoided this house?" she continued gently.
"I thought I could be of more service to you elsewhere," he replied evasively."I have been lately following up a certain clue rather closely.I think I am on the track of a confidante of--of--that woman."A quick shadow passed over Mrs.Tucker's face."Indeed!" she said coldly."Then I am to believe that you prefer to spend your leisure moments in looking after that creature to calling here?"Poindexter was stupefied.Was this the woman who only four months ago was almost vindictively eager to pursue her husband's paramour!
There could be but one answer to it--Don Jose! Four months ago he would have smiled compassionately at it from his cynical pre-eminence.Now he managed with difficulty to stifle the bitterness of his reply.
"If you do not wish the inquiry carried on," he began, "of course--""I? What does it matter to me?" she said coolly."Do as you please."Nevertheless, half an hour later, as he was leaving, she said, with a certain hesitating timidity, "Do not leave me so much alone here, and let that woman go."This was not the only unlooked-for sequel to her innocent desire to propitiate her best friends.Don Jose did not call again upon his usual day, but in his place came Dona Clara, his younger sister.
When Mrs.Tucker had politely asked after the absent Don Jose, Dona Clara wound her swarthy arms around the fair American's waist and replied, "But why did you send for the abogado Poindexter when my brother called?""But Captain Poindexter calls as one of my friends," said the amazed Mrs.Tucker."He is a gentleman, and has been a soldier and an officer," she added with some warmth.
"Ah, yes, a soldier of the law, what you call an oficial de policia, a chief of gendarmes, my sister, but not a gentleman--a camarero to protect a lady."Mrs.Tucker would have uttered a hasty reply, but the perfect and good-natured simplicity of Dona Clara withheld her.Nevertheless, she treated Don Jose with a certain reserve at their next meeting, until it brought the simple-minded Castilian so dangerously near the point of demanding an explanation which implied too much that she was obliged to restore him temporarily to his old footing.
Meantime she had a brilliant idea.She would write to Calhoun Weaver, whom she had avoided since that memorable day.She would say she wished to consult him.He would come to Los Cuervos; he might suggest something to lighten this weary waiting; at least she would show them all that she had still old friends.Yet she did not dream of returning to her Blue Grass home; her parents had died since she left; she shrank from the thought of dragging her ruined life before the hopeful youth of her girlhood's companions.
Mr.Calhoun Weaver arrived promptly, ostentatiously, oracularly, and cordially, but a little coarsely.He had--did she remember?--expected this from the first.Spencer had lost his head through vanity, and had attempted too much.It required foresight and firmness, as he himself--who had lately made successful "combinations" which she might perhaps have heard of--well knew.
But Spencer had got the "big head." "As to that woman--a devilish handsome woman too!--well, everybody knew that Spencer always had a weakness that way, and he would say--but if she didn't care to hear any more about her--well, perhaps she was right.That was the best way to take it." Sitting before her, prosperous, weak, egotistical, incompetent, unavailable, and yet filled with a vague kindliness of intent, Mrs.Tucker loathed him.A sickening perception of her own weakness in sending for him, a new and aching sense of her utter isolation and helplessness, seemed to paralyze her.
"Nat'rally you feel bad," he continued, with the large air of a profound student of human nature."Nat'rally, nat'rally you're kept in an uncomfortable state, not knowing jist how you stand.
There ain't but one thing to do.Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce agin Spencer.Hold on! There ain't a judge or jury in California that wouldn't give it to you right off the nail, without asking questions.Why, you 'ld get it by default if you wanted to;you 'ld just have to walk over the course! And then, Belle," he drew his chair still nearer her, "when you've settled down again--well!--I don't mind renewing that offer I once made ye, before Spencer ever came round ye--I don't mind, Belle, I swear I don't!
Honest Injin! I'm in earnest, there's my hand!"Mrs.Tucker's reply has not been recorded.Enough that half an hour later Mr.Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on his foolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental and moral disturbance.His cordiality and oracular predisposition remained sufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words "Blue Grass" mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erect figure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silent but half-compassionate farewell.
At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the few who saw her more frequently.Her apparently invincible girlishness of spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness.She applied herself to her household cares and the improvement of the hacienda with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees she wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but part of her own individuality.
