seemed, it all might easily have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, and
spontaneous nature, which had not been bitted or bridled, and he might
have landed at Quebec without committing himself, were it not for the
fact that he was not to land at Quebec.

That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, many
hours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, and
only saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that his
enthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so like
her Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick of
intelligence as she was, she was by nature more material than she looked,
and there was certainly something physically attractive in him--some
curious magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which might one day
become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour in harmony
with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given too much sun,
or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life. There
was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake down the whole
structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because she was
deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelings for
him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light of love
in her, joined to a passion for comfort and warmth and to a natural self-
indulgence. She was determined to make Jean Jacques offer himself before
they landed at Quebec.

But they did not land at Quebec.




CHAPTER II