I shook my head. "You cannot reason with inexperience; and when it
is allied to jealousy--God of my soul! Her ideal, of course, is
perfection, and does not take human weakness into account. You have
fallen short of it to-day. I fear your cause is lost."

"It is not! Do you think I will give her up for a trifle like that?"

"But why not accept this break? You cannot marry her--"

"Oh, do not refer to that nonsense!" he exclaimed, harshly. "I shall
peel off her traditions when the time comes, as I would strip off the
outer hulls of a nut. Go! Go, Eustaquia!"

Of course I went. Chonita was not at the rodeo-ground, but, escorted
by her father, had gone home. I followed immediately, and when I
reached Casa Grande I found her sitting in her library. I never saw
a statue look more like marble. Her face was locked: only the eyes
betrayed the soul in torment. But she looked as immutable as a fate.

"Chonita," I exclaimed, hardly knowing where to begin, "be reasonable.
Men of Estenega's brain and passionate affectionate nature are always
weak with women, but it means nothing. He cares nothing for Valencia
Menendez. He is madly in love with you. And his weakness, my dear,
springs from the same source as his charm. He would not be the man
he is without it. His heart would be less kindly, his impulses less
generous, his brain less virile, his sympathies less instinctive and
true. The strong impregnable man, the man whom no vice tempts, no
weakness assails, who is loyal without effort,--such a man lacks
breadth and magnetism and the power to read the human heart and
sympathize with both its noble impulses and its terrible weaknesses.