their noses to the ground! It might vex Juan if he knew that you
were waiting only for the Father. What do you think?"

"I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-shearing waits
for my pleasure," answered Felipe, still wrathful, "and that is the
end of it." And so it was; and, moreover, precisely the end which
Senora Moreno had had in her own mind from the beginning; but
not even Juan Canito himself suspected its being solely her
purpose, and not her son's. As for Felipe, if any person had
suggested to him that it was his mother, and not he, who had
decided that the sheep-shearing would be better deferred until the
arrival of Father Salvierderra from Santa Barbara, and that nothing
should be said on the ranch about this being the real reason of the
postponing, Felipe would have stared in astonishment, and have
thought that person either crazy or a fool.

To attain one's ends in this way is the consummate triumph of art.
Never to appear as a factor in the situation; to be able to wield
other men, as instruments, with the same direct and implicit
response to will that one gets from a hand or a foot,-- this is to
triumph, indeed: to be as nearly controller and conqueror of Fates
as fate permits. There have been men prominent in the world's
affairs at one time and another, who have sought and studied such
a power and have acquired it to a great degree. By it they have
manipulated legislators, ambassadors, sovereigns; and have
grasped, held, and played with the destinies of empires. But it is to
be questioned whether even in these notable instances there has
ever been such marvellous completeness of success as is
sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the power is an
instinct and not an attainment; a passion rather than a purpose.