The struggle left the impress on his face. He passed a boundary in it. Certain boyish feelings and graces would never again be possible to him. He went into the house, weary, and longing for companionship that would comfort or strengthen him. Only Isabel was in the parlor. She appeared to be asleep among the sofa cushions, but she opened her eyes wide as he took a chair beside her.
"I have been waiting to kiss you again, Juan; do you think this trouble will last very long?"
"It will be over directly, Iza. Do not fret yourself about it, angel mio. The Americans are great fighters, and their quarrel is just. Well, then, it will be settled by the good God quickly."
"Rachela says that Santa Anna has sent off a million of men to fight the Americans. Some they will cut in pieces, and some are to be sent to the mines to work in chains."
"God is not dead of old age, Iza. Santa Anna is a miraculous tyrant. He has committed every crime under heaven, but I think he will not cut the Americans in pieces."
"And if the Americans should even make him go back to Mexico!"
"I think that is very possible."
"What then, Juan?"
"He would pay for some of his crimes here the rest he would settle for in purgatory. And you, too, Iza, are you with the Americans?"
"Luis Alveda says they are right."
"Oh-h! I see! So Luis is to be my brother too. Is that so, little dear?"
"Have you room in your heart for him? Or has this Dare Grant filled it?"
"If I had twenty sisters, I should have room for twenty brothers, if they were like Dare and Luis. But, indeed, Luis had his place there before I knew Dare."
"And perhaps you may see him soon; he is with Senor Sam Houston. Senor Houston was here not a week ago. Will you think of that? And the mother and uncle of Luis are angry at him; he will be disinherited, and we shall be very poor, I think. But there is always my father, who loves Luis."
"Luis will win his own inheritance. I think you will be very rich."
"And, Juan, if you see Luis, say to him, `Iza thinks of you continually.'"
At this moment Rachela angrily called her charge--"Are you totally and forever wicked, disobedient one? Two hours I have been kept waiting. Very well! The, Sisters are the only duenna for you; and back to the convent you shall go to-morrow. The Senora is of my mind, also."
"My father will not permit it. I will go to my father. And think of this, Rachela: I am no longer to be treated like a baby." But she kissed Juan `farewell,' and went away without further dispute.
The handsome room looked strangely lonely and desolate when the door had closed behind her. Jack rose, and roughly shook himself, as if by that means he hoped to throw off the oppression and melancholy that was invading even his light heart. Hundreds of moths were dashing themselves to death against the high glass shade that covered the blowing candles from them. He stood and looked at their hopeless efforts to reach the flame. He had an unpleasant thought; one of those thoughts which have the force of a presentiment. He put it away with annoyance, muttering, "It is time enough to meet misfortune when it comes."
The sound of a footstep made him stand erect and face the door.
It was only a sleepy peon with a request that he would go to his father's study. A different mental atmosphere met him there. The doctor was walking up and down the room, and Dare and Antonia sat together at the open window.
"Your father wants to hear about our journey, Jack. Take my chair and tell him what happened. Antonia and I will walk within hearing; a roof makes me restless such a night as this"; for the waning moon had risen, and the cool wind from the Gulf was shaking a thousand scents from the trees and the flowering shrubs.
The change was made with the words, and the doctor sat down beside his son. "I was asking, Jack, how you knew so much about Texan affairs, and how you came so suddenly to take part in them?"
"Indeed, father, we could not escape knowing. The Texan fever was more or less in every young man's blood. One night Dare had a supper at his rooms, and there were thirty of us present. A man called Faulkner--a fine fellow from Nacogdoches--spoke to us. How do you think he spoke, when his only brother, a lad of twenty, is working in a Mexican mine loaded with chains?"
"For what?"
"He said one day that `the natural boundaries of the United States are the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.' He was sent to the mines for the words. Faulkner's only hope for him is in the independence of Texas. He had us on fire in five minutes--all but Sandy McDonald, who loves to argue, and therefore took the Mexican side."
"What could he say for it?"
"He said it was a very unjustlike thing to make Mexico give her American settlers in Texas two hundred and twenty-four millions of acres because she thought a change of government best for her own interests."
"The Americans settled in Texas under the solemn guarantee of the constitution of eighteen twenty-four. How many of them would have built homes under a tyrannical despotism like that Santa Anna is now forcing upon them?" asked the doctor, warmly.
"McDonald said, `There is a deal of talk about freedom among you Americans, and it just means nothing at all.' You should have seen Faulkner! He turned on him like a tornado. `How should you know anything about freedom, McDonald?' he cried.
