第32章

She passed her hand through Rosita's passive arm and led her towards the house, Ezekiel's penetrating eyes still following Rosita with an expression of gratified doubt.

For once, however, that astute observer was wrong.When Mrs.

Demorest had reached the house she slipped into her own room, and, bolting the door, drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked from the cactus thorn, and read it with a flushed face and eager eyes.

It may have been the effect of the phenomenal weather, but the next day a malign influence seemed to pervade the Demorest household.

Dona Rosita was confined to her room by an attack of languid nerves, superinduced, as she was still voluble enough to declare, by the narcotic effect of some unknown herb which the lunatic Ezekiel had no doubt mysteriously administered to her with a view of experimenting on its properties.She even avowed that she must speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel should further compromise her reputation by putting her on a colored label in place of the usual Celestial Distributer of the Panacea.Ezekiel himself, who had been singularly abstracted and reticent, and had absolutely foregone one or two opportunities of disagreeable criticism, had gone to the pueblo early that morning.The house was comparatively silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his wife's boudoir.

It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished with a singular mingling of her own inherited formal tastes and the more sensuous coloring and abandon of her new life.There were a great many rugs and hangings scattered in disorder around the room, and apparently purposeless, except for color; there was a bamboo lounge as large as a divan, with two or three cushions disposed on it, and a low chair that seemed the incarnation of indolence.Opposed to this, on the wall, was the rigid picture of her grandfather, who had apparently retired with his volume further into the canvas before the spectacle of this ungodly opulence; a large Bible on a funereal trestle-like stand, and the primmest and barest of writing-tables, before which she was standing as at a sacrificial altar.With an almost mechanical movement she closed her portfolio as her husband entered, and also shut the lid of a small box with a slight snap.This suggested exclusion of him from her previous occupation, whatever it might have been, caused a faint shadow of pain to pass across his loving eyes.He cast a glance at his wife as if mutely asking her to sit beside him, but she drew a chair to the table, and with her elbow resting on the box, resignedly awaited his speech.

"I don't mean to disturb you, darling," he said, gently, "but as we were alone, I thought we might have one of our old-fashioned talks, and--""Don't let it be so old-fashioned as to include North Liberty again," she interrupted, wearily."We've had quite enough of that since I returned.""I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting the past.

But let that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to you about now," he said, stifling a sigh, "it's about your friend.

Please don't misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that Iinterpose except from necessity."

She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, but her glance passed abstractedly over his head into the garden.

"It's a matter perfectly well known to me--and, I fear, to all our servants also--that somebody is making clandestine visits to our garden.I would not trouble you before, until I ascertained the object of these visits.It is quite plain to me now that Dona Rosita is that object, and that communications are secretly carried on between her and some unknown stranger.He has been here once or twice before; he was here again yesterday.Ezekiel saw him and saw her.""Together?" asked Mrs.Demorest, sharply.

"No; but it was evident that there was some understanding, and that some communication passed between them.""Well?" said Mrs.Demorest, with repressed impatience.

"It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a man who does not dare to approach your friend in her own house, nor more openly in this; but who, with her connivance, uses us to carry on an intrigue which may be perfectly innocent, but is certainly compromising to all concerned.I am quite willing to believe that Dona Rosita is only romantic and reckless, but that will not prevent her from becoming a dupe of some rascal who dare not face us openly, and who certainly does not act as her equal.""Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guardian."There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than in her words, that touched him as her cold indifference to himself had never done, and for an instant stung his crushed spirit to revolt.

"No" he said, sternly, "but I am her father's FRIEND, and I shall not allow his daughter to be compromised under my roof."Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as they once had met in love."And since when, Richard Demorest, have you become so particular?" she began, with dry asperity."Since you lured ME from the side of my wedded husband? Since you met MEclandestinely in trains and made love to ME under an assumed name?