one eye when I tickle him."

Estenega sauntered down the garden endeavoring to imagine Chonita fat
and classified. He could not. He paused beside a woman who did not
raise her eyes at once, but coquettishly pretended to be absorbed in
the conversation of those about her. She too had been married a year
and more, but her figure had not lost its elegance, and she was very
handsome. Her coquetry was partly fear. Estenega's power was felt
alike by innocent girls and chaste matrons. There were few scandals in
those days; the women of the aristocracy were virtuous by instinct
and rigid social laws; but, how it would be hard to tell, Estenega
had acquired the reputation of being a dangerous man. Perhaps it had
followed him back from the city of Mexico, where at one time, he had
spent three years as diputado, and whence returned with a brilliant
and startling record of gallantry. A woman had followed on the next
ship, and, unless I am much mistaken, Diego passed many uneasy
hours before he persuaded her to return to Mexico. Then old Don José
Briones' beautiful young wife was found dead in her bed one morning,
and the old women who dressed the body swore that there were marks of
hard skinny fingers on her throat. Estenega had made no secret of his
admiration of her. At different times girls of the people had left
Monterey suddenly, and vague rumors had floated down from the North
that they had been seen in the redwood forests where Estenega's
ranchos lay. I asked him, point-blank, one day, if these stories were
true, prepared to scold him as he deserved; and he remarked coolly
that stories of that sort were always exaggerated, as well as a man's
success with women. But one had only to look at that face, with its
expression of bitter-humorous knowledge, its combination of strength
and weakness, to feel sure that there were chapters in his life that
no woman outside of them would ever read. I always felt, when with