That morning Alvarado and several members of the Junta had arrived,
but not Estenega. He had come as far as the Rancho Temblor, Alvarado
explained, and there, meeting some old friends, had decided to remain
over night and accompany them the next day to the ceremony. As Chonita
had stood on the corridor and watched the approach of the Governor's
cavalcade her heart had beaten violently, and she had angrily
acknowledged that her nervousness was due to the fact that she was
about to meet Diego Estenega again. When she discovered that he
was not of the party, she turned to me with pique, resentment, and
disappointment in her face.

"Even if I cannot ever like him," she said, "at least I might have the
pleasure of hearing him talk. There is no harm in that, even if he is
an Estenega, a renegade, and the enemy of my brother. I can hate him
with my heart and like him with my mind. And he must have cared little
to see us again, that he could linger for another day."

"I am mad to see Don Diego Estenega," said Valencia, her red lips
pouting. "Why did he, of all others, tarry?"

"He is fickle and perverse," I said,--"the most uncertain man I know."

"Perhaps he thought to make us wish to see him the more," suggested
Valencia.

"No," I said: "he has no ridiculous vanities."

Chonita wandered back and forth behind the arches, waiting for
Prudencia's long confession of sinless errors to conclude.