THE day set for Canterac’s great surprise party to the marquesa had arrived. Under Moreno’s direction the workmen set up the last trees in the level space near the river.

Groups of curiosity seekers were already admiring from afar the Frenchman’s improvisation of a wood. From Fuerte Sarmiento, and from as far as the capital of the territory of Neuquen, sight-seers were arriving, attracted by the novelty of the fiesta that was to be given at La Presa. Some workmen were still busy swinging ropes of vines from tree to tree, and nailing up clusters of banners.

Friterini, raised to the proud rank of head-waiter, had taken his somewhat dusty swallow tail out of his trunk, and had donned this relic of the days when he had served as emergency waiter in the hotels of Europe and Buenos Aires. Throwing out his stiff shirt bosom, and nervously struggling every few minutes with his white tie, he directed the operations of a troup of half-breed women from the boliche who had been transformed into waitresses and were setting the tables for the afternoon’s entertainment.

Don Antonio, in other words, the Gallego, had also been transformed, at least outwardly, for the occasion. He wore a black suit, and a thick gold chain dangled across his waistcoat. Don Antonio was one of the guests of the occasion; his right to figure among the important personages of the settlement had been recognized. However, as the refreshments had been entrusted to his establishment, he had thought it advisable to transfer himself to the scene of the festivities as early in the afternoon as possible in order to see to it that the preparations were properly attended to.

Among the spectators on the other side of the wire enclosure were several gauchos, among them the notorious Manos Duras, who, after the affair at the boliche, had quietly returned to the settlement in order to offer the explanations he thought adequate. He did not for a moment deny that some of those who had provoked the affair were friends of his, but they were all older and more experienced men than he, so he couldn’t very well be responsible for their acts. He wasn’t their father. When the row occurred he was far away from the settlement. What was the idea anyway in trying to implicate him in things for which he was not to blame?

The comisario had to content himself with these explanations; the proprietor of the boliche also made haste to accept them, in the belief that it was better to number the gaucho among one’s friends than one’s enemies. And now Manos Duras stood contemplating with a somewhat mocking stare the preparations for the garden party. The other gauchos, as silent as he, seemed to be laughing to themselves at all the goings-on. Those gringos, carrying trees away from the spot where God had planted them ... and for a woman!

The inhabitants of La Presa were more outspoken in their comments. In fact some were quite vociferous about them, and the better dressed of the women expressed themselves very freely on the subject of the marquesa.

“That great big doll ... tal! What she gets the men to do for her!”

And they rehearsed the expenditures that Pirovani, close, even hard-fisted in his dealings with the workmen, had made for this gringa. Every single day the train from Buenos Aires, or BahÍa Blanca brought in presents for the marquesa, and all paid for out of the contractor’s pocket. And then there was the cart with a great tank set up on it, that did nothing else all day long but bring water from the river to the marquesa’s house, just because she had to have a bath every day!

“She must have something on her skin that won’t come off,” some of the women gravely asserted.

To all of them, obliged as they were to go to the river with a jar on their hips when they wanted water, this tank and cart represented the most unheard of and extravagant of comforts. A bath every day in that land where the slightest breath of wind raised columns of fine dust, columns so enormous that one had to bend way over towards the ground in order to keep one’s balance under their impact ...! And as every woman in the settlement had in her hair and the linings of her clothes the accumulated dust of a week, this extravagance in the use of water enraged them all. It reminded them too vividly of the differences and similarities between them and the marquesa. She had the things they didn’t have; but she was a woman like them ... yet she never for a moment shared in the life of this desert community as they knew it....

To console herself one of them maliciously alluded to the marquÉs,

“And to think that he’s likely to come along this afternoon with his wife’s lovers! Would you believe that a man could be so blind? No, they must both be in the game....”

And in this fashion all those who had not been invited, and who had no other means of seeing the celebration than by peering through the wire fence, were consoling themselves by making hostile remarks about the marquesa, her friends and her husband.

Celinda rode her horse past the different groups; and she too looked resentfully at the hastily improvised park. Then, perhaps so as not to hear the scandalous remarks of the women, she made off towards the town.

Without for a moment neglecting to keep an eye on the preparation of the tables for the refreshments, Gonzalez was talking with several of his customers, and pointing to the river. He couldn’t have found a better occasion for repeating with professorial gravity some of the things he had heard his compatriot Robledo say about it.

“The Indians had named the river ‘Black’ because of the trouble they had in paddling up its course against the swift current. Then the Spanish explorers named it ‘River of the Willows’ because in former times so many of these trees grew along its banks. There were fewer of them now, but they still constituted the greatest obstacle to navigation, so many were the roots and tree-trunks that rose like ram’s horns to batter in the sides of small craft venturing on these waters. Several centuries passed before it was explored; meanwhile the assertion made by the Indians that it was possible to travel on its waters as far as Chile, and that it formed a link between the Atlantic and Pacific, thus providing a canal far more accessible than the straits of Magellan, was generally believed.

“An English missionary attempted to explore it in the hope that his discoveries would make it possible for England to take possession of the region, and that this waterway would give her a vantage point for attacking the Spanish colonies in the Pacific.

“And then the Spaniards, who had plenty to do because they owned most of America, thought they had better get busy.

“It was Alfarez de la Armada, him they called Villamarino, who, in the last third of the 18th century, when almost the whole of America had been explored and colonized, performed this difficult and obscure task.

“Don Manuel says that Villamarino is the last representative of the great race of Spanish explorers,” asserted the Gallego.

“With four small boats, heavily laden and not at all adequate to the journey, he started from Carmen de Patagones on the Atlantic side with an escort of sixty men. This handful of whites was going to plunge into a totally unknown country, in which the most savage and blood-thirsty Indians of the Southern continent were to be found. It was from the banks of the Rio Negro that the invasions of the civilized lands of the viceroy of La Plata started; rather than invasions they were raids by dark-skinned horsemen excited by the prospect of leading off as booty the sleek cattle of the ranches around Buenos Aires. So, with his four little boats, Villamarino was going to navigate for hundreds of leagues between banks on which were ambushed numerous bands of Aucas, the fiercest and most warlike of the native tribes.

“Only those of us who know how violent the current of this river can be at times can imagine something of what that expedition must have been like, navigating against the current, in boats propelled by long poles and a bit of sail. They took along fifteen horses to drag the boats along the shore in the places where there was no way of getting through the tangle of roots, or where the rapids against them were too strong. Four different times the high winds snapped off the masts.... Yes, as don Manuel puts it, Villamarino was the last flash of that fire of courage that had burned in the Spanish Conquistadores for nearly four centuries. The expedition went on month after month. As they had no baqueano or guide, they often mistook the way and went up tributaries, so that they had to retrace their steps sometimes for many miles.... They were looking for the sea that the Indians talked about so often.... And at last, at the end of the Limay, which is a part of the Rio Negro, they came out on a sea—but an inland one—nothing more than Lake Nahuel Huapi.... But one thing is certain, and that is that until this river is cleaned up no modern explorer, not even with the boats we have now, is going to repeat the trip that the ensign Villamarino started out on a century and a half ago.”

Carried away by his patriotic enthusiasm, Gonzalez went on repeating to his hearers all that the engineer had told him; but his audience was rapidly melting away, attracted by the preparations for lunch. To most of them the sight of the tables elaborately decorated for the occasion was far more interesting than the Gallego’s rhapsodies about the young officer of the Spanish navy, and his descriptions of the ancient “River of the Willows”....

The crowd was fast increasing. An orchestra, composed of a few Italians who lived near Neuquen, began to shatter the air with the strident notes of their brass instruments. At once several couples began to dance. This struck don Antonio as a serious lack of respect for the organizer of the festivities.

“Don’t let them dance until the marquesa arrives,” he commanded to Friterini. “This party is in her honor and the seÑor de Canterac won’t like it if it begins before she gets here.”

But neither musicians nor dancers had the slightest consideration for don Antonio’s scruples.

Elena meanwhile, most elegantly dressed for the party, was sitting in the drawing-room at home; and she was frowning.

“Such things as this happen to no one but me,” she was thinking. “Why in the world should this news get here today, and just before the garden party? And yet some people don’t believe in fate!”

That day happened to be one of those on which the train came down from Buenos Aires bringing the mail. A short time after it had reached the house Torre Bianca, his face white and full of consternation, came to his wife’s room to show her a letter.

“Look Elena.... This is from our family lawyer....”

A glance at the sheet he held out to her showed her what the letter was. It announced the death of Federico’s mother.

“Ever since you went away to America, the seÑora marquesa’s health has been very bad. We all of us knew that the end might come at any moment. She was thinking of you when she died. We heard her speak your name even after we thought she would never say another word.

“We enclose a few particulars about the estate which unfortunately....”

Elena stopped reading to look with inquiring eyes at her husband. But he stood with his head sunk between his shoulders, as though stricken himself by the news. She hesitated about speaking; but as time passed and he still stood brooding in silence, she said slowly:

“I suppose that this news, which really can’t have been so unexpected—you remember you said several times that you feared this must happen soon—isn’t going to keep us from going to the garden fÊte?”

Torre Bianca raised his eyes and looked at her in amazement.

“What are you saying? Don’t you understand that it is my mother who has died?”

Elena pretended to be somewhat embarrassed; then she said in a tone of kindly sympathy,

“I am so sorry to hear of the poor lady’s death! She was your mother, and that in itself is enough to make me grieve for her. But you must remember, Federico, that I never saw her and that she knew me only from photographs. Do be calm and try to be reasonable! Just because, on the other side of the globe, this unhappy event has occurred we surely aren’t going to deprive ourselves of going to a fiesta that represents a tremendous outlay of money, and that has been prepared especially for us, by our friend....”

She drew near to her husband, and said in a melting voice, while she caressed his cheek—

“After all, dear, one must have a certain regard for social conventions. No one knows about this yet. Just pretend that the letter hasn’t arrived and that you will receive it in day after tomorrow’s mail.... Yes, that is the best way to manage it. You don’t know this sad news yet, and you are coming with me this afternoon.... What do you gain by remembering it now? There is time enough to think of this unfortunate happening later....”

The marquÉs indicated that he did not agree with her. Then he raised a hand to his eyes, and leaning one elbow on his knees, he groaned softly to himself,

“She was my mother ... my poor old loving mother....”

They were both silent for a long time. Then, as though unwilling to let his wife see the grief he felt, the marquÉs took refuge in the adjoining room. Elena, scowling to herself, and in a thoroughly bad humor, could hear him walking to and fro on the other side of the door; and every now and then she heard him groan. Finally she opened the door through which the marquÉs had disappeared.

“You had better stay here, Federico. Don’t worry about me. I’ll go alone and make up an excuse for your absence. I’ll see you later then, alma mÍa! Of course you know that the only reason why I am leaving you now is so as not to hurt our friend’s feelings. Oh, what a bore these social obligations are!”

It was strange to hear the gently pitying tones of her voice when at the same time the corners of her mouth were tense and twisted with anger.

She put on her hat and went out. From the top of the stairs she could see the street, that was for once completely deserted. Everyone in town had gone to see the “park,” Canterac and the contractor, each acting independently, having declared the occasion a general holiday, forcing a day of idleness upon their subordinates.

In front of the house there was a small four-wheeled cart in charge of a half-breed who was asleep on the driver’s seat, a Paraguay cigar between his thick bluish lips. A swarm of flies buzzed about his sweat-smeared face.

Elena was thinking now of her admirers who must by this time be impatiently looking for her. They had refrained from coming to get her, inasmuch as the day before she had announced to them that she wished to arrive at the party with no other escort than her husband. Elena had come to believe that a lady always avoids giving any occasion for gossip.

As she turned away from the house and approached the cart, she heard a sound of galloping hoofs. A rider suddenly appeared from one of the adjoining narrow streets. It was Flor de Rio Negro.

Elena, by a kind of intuition, like the instinctive alarm of an animal when something hostile is approaching it, guessed that it was she who was coming before she saw her. Without waiting for the horse to stop, the reckless young rider slipped out of the saddle to the ground. Then, with the slow gait of one who has not walked for some hours and is surprised by the strange hard feel of the ground, she approached Elena.

“SeÑora, a word with you, only one!”

She stepped in between Elena and the cart, cutting her off.

In spite of her cold hauteur Elena was startled by the girl’s hostile eyes. However, she tried to preserve her impressive calm, and with a gesture seemed to inquire,

“Can it really be me you want?”

Celinda, quick enough to understand her, replied with a nod. As the marquesa lifted her hand, in an affectation of queenliness, giving the girl permission to speak, Celinda asked in a tone that was sharp and resonant with hate,

“Haven’t you enough with all these men you are driving mad? Do you have to take away those who belong to other women too?”

Elena offered nothing by way of reply but a withering glance that swept the girl from head to foot. Surely she was sufficiently superior to crush the impudent young thing with a look....

“I don’t know you,” Elena was forced to say as the girl still barred her passage. “Besides there are such differences in rank and education separating us that it is useless for me to try to talk to you.”

She tried then to brush Celinda aside; but the girl, irritated beyond bearing by her contemptuous glance, raised the small riding whip she held in her left hand.

“You devil in skirts!”

She aimed a blow at Elena’s face; but the latter defended herself promptly, clutching at her assailant’s arm. The older woman was intensely pale, and her eyes had grown larger with amazement, while a feline light gleamed in their pupils. Then she said in a voice that was slightly hoarse,

“That will do! Don’t trouble ... I’ll consider the blow as given ... and I shan’t forget the gift! I’ll return something equivalent when the proper time comes....”

She let go her grip of Celinda’s arm. The girl seemed to have poured out all her rage. With arms hanging limp, she stood motionless, as though repenting of her attack on her enemy.

Elena made good use of this momentary respite, and climbing into the cart, tapped the driver on the shoulder to rouse him from the sleep in which he had been quite undisturbed by the scene going on within two feet.

As soon as they had progressed beyond the limits of the town, Elena caught sight of the park and the crowd streaming around it. A rider was cantering in the opposite direction as though coming back from the party. With a great sweep of his hat he saluted her. Recognizing Manos Duras, she smiled mechanically in response to his greeting. Then, without seriously taking account of what she was doing, she beckoned to him. The gaucho instantly swung his horse around and rode up to the cart, following alongside.

“How are you, seÑora? Why are you so pale?”

Elena made an effort to regain her serenity. She must still bear the traces of her recent violent emotions, and she wanted to reach the fiesta tranquil and smiling. No one must divine the insult she had just received....

As though eager to put an end as quickly as possible to her conversation with Manos Duras, she asked him gayly,

“You told me one day that you admired me and that you were ready to do anything I might ask you, no matter how terrible....”

Manos Duras again raised his hand to his hat in salutation and smiled, showing his sharp wolf’s teeth.

“Command what you will, seÑora. Shall I kill someone for you?”

As he spoke he looked at her with eyes in which glittered a wolfish desire. Elena pretended to shrink back in alarm from what his words suggested.

“Kill! Oh no! What do you take me for? On the contrary, the favor I ask of you ought to be one you take pleasure in granting. Well, we’ll talk it over. I’ll let you know when I need you....”

As the gaucho lingered over his farewells, she indicated with a vigorous gesture that he must leave her. They were now near the site of the “park” and it would scarcely do for the marquesa to arrive without her husband and with such an escort!

Manos Duras reined in his horse to watch the cart roll down the road. For some minutes his eyes followed that most extraordinary and fascinating of all the women he had ever encountered. Then, as she passed out of sight, his submissive watch-dog’s expression changed to one of harsh aggressiveness.

The guests were entering the artificial park in full view of the envious populace who were constrained, by the comisario’s vigilance, and that of his four henchmen, to remain outside the wire fence. The guests were for the most part Spanish and Italian merchants from the nearest small towns. Some of them had come from as far as the island of Choel-Choel, the last stopping place of the few boats navigating up the river. Also the foremen and machinists of the works were arriving with their wives, arrayed in the clothes that they kept packed away for their excursions to BahÍa Blanca or Buenos Aires.

Robledo was wandering through the short avenues of the park, looking ironically about at Canterac’s absurd creation. Moreno was pointing out with a good deal of pride the particularly admirable features of that part of the work which he had attended to himself.

“The handsomest thing of all is a kind of summerhouse or shrine of flowers at the end of the arbor. Undoubtedly the captain will try to carry off the marquesa and keep her there awhile, but she’s clever enough, she’ll know how to get away when she wants to....”

He winked knowingly as he spoke of Canterac’s plans; then, very gravely, by way of affirming still further his belief in the marquesa’s prudence, he remarked that “she was not the kind of woman that some people believed her to be.”

He seemed disposed to show Robledo the remarkable “shrine of flowers” when suddenly he sped away, mumbling excuses, in the direction of the entrance to the park. Elena was arriving! And, just as he ran, so did her other admirers; but, after greeting them all three, she quite frankly showed her preference for Watson, who had, with a somewhat more dignified pace, also gone to meet her. Even while she talked to the others she did not cease looking at the youth with caressing glances. Robledo, watching the group from afar, was immediately aware of the preference Elena was betraying for his young partner.

Annoyed by this discovery, he drew near to pay his respects to the guest of honor. Then he turned to Watson, and, in a low tone, asked him to take a turn through the tree-bordered allÉe. But Watson pretended not to understand him. Finally Canterac, who, as the creator of the fiesta, assumed an overwhelming superiority, interposed, and separating Elena from the others, offered her his arm. He must show her all the beauties of his park.... Robledo took advantage of this diversion to lead Watson away under the trees. Scarcely were they alone when, in a fatherly tone, and with a slight nod towards the woman who was walking away down the path, leaning on Canterac’s arm, he said,

“Take care, Richard, my boy! This Circe of ours is trying to subdue you too to her enchantments....”

But Watson, who had always listened deferentially to his partner up to the present, now looked haughtily at him.

“I am old enough to know how to take care of myself,” he replied drily. “Besides, when I want advice I shall ask for it.”

Muttering a few words that Robledo could not make out, young Watson turned his back on him and left him.

Robledo was startled by the boy’s manner. Then he grew indignant.

“This woman again! She goes too far ... robbing me of my best friend....”

The most interesting part of the fiesta, as far as the majority of the guests were concerned, was about to begin. Friterini began to shout out orders to the half-breeds who were to be the waitresses of the occasion. On the tables, made of boards laid on small wooden horses, and covered with recently laundered tablecloths, the rarest and most savory delicacies of the boliche and the other dispensaries of meat and drink in the immediate vicinity of Rio Negro, were being assembled. From Europe and the distant parts of America came choice morsels that had a flavor of tin and tin foil. There were potted meats from Chicago, Frankfort’s famous sausages, French pÂtÉ de foie gras, Galician sardines, peppers from Rioja, olives from Seville, all of them foods that had crossed the ocean in metal boxes or wooden crates.

Most extraordinary of all were the drinks. Only a few gringos, those who were natives of the so-called “Latin countries,” paid any attention to the bottles of dusky wine. The other guests, especially the native sons of the soil, considered all beverages of a reddish hue very ordinary drinks indeed, and quite beneath their notice. In their opinion the clearness and colorlessness of a wine was a mark of its aristocracy. The popping of champagne corks resounded continuously. And many were there who tossed off the sparkling wines as though they were water.

“All this would be pretty expensive in Europe,” exclaimed a greasy-faced Russian. “But here, with the difference in exchange!...”

The order-loving Moreno contemplated the increasing thirst of the guests with considerable anxiety. At the same time, with mysterious gestures, and words muttered in passing, he admonished the enthusiastic Friterini, urging him to be sparing and prudent.

“Provided Canterac’s pesos hold out!” he said to himself. “But it begins to look as though we wouldn’t have money enough to pay for it all.”

Meanwhile the Frenchman, with Elena on his arm, was walking under the trees, or stopping to point out the largest of them to his companion.

“This is scarcely the park of Versailles, bella marquesa,” he was saying, imitating the gallantry of past centuries. “But, however humble it may be, it represents the great interest that one man here takes in making himself agreeable to you....”

Pirovani, pretending to be absorbed in his thoughts, was following them from a moderate distance. He could not conceal how much this garden fÊte, conceived and executed by his rival, annoyed him. He had to acknowledge that he would never have been able to think of anything like this. It only proved what an advantage it was to have had an education....

As he advanced through the artificial park he tried, without being seen, to push with all his weight against the trees nearest him in the hope that they would fall over. But his evil desires were of no avail. All the trees stood firmly erect and immovable. That fool of a Moreno had done things well in so far as helping Canterac was concerned.

But the Italian’s hands turned cold, and all his blood seemed to rush to his heart when he saw the couple he was following disappear in an arbor of dense foliage at the far end of a tree-bordered avenue. This was Moreno’s “shrine of flowers.”

“Now the queen can sit on her throne,” said Canterac. And he pointed to a rustic bench which had a kind of canopy over it, made of garlands of foliage and paper flowers.

Excited by finding himself alone with the marquesa, the engineer began to talk in an impassioned manner of his love for her and of the sacrifices he was ready to make for her. He had often gone on in this way before, but never with such intensity. Stimulated by the success of his plans up to this point, he was nearly beside himself at the thought of having a prolonged tÊte À tÊte with Elena in the bower he had made for her.

She sat down on the rustic bench with the engineer by her side but, although still wearing a provocative smile, she seemed a trifle uneasy. Canterac seized both her hands, and leaned over towards her mouth. Elena, on her guard, eluded him, and struggled to free herself from his grasp.

This struggle was going on when Pirovani appeared at the entrance to the bower. But neither of its two occupants could see him. The contest continued, Canterac bent on reaching the marquesa’s lips, Elena, unmindful now of her coquettish pruderies, violently repulsing him.

“This isn’t fair,” she panted. “And my hair will be all disarranged! You are going to spoil my hat.... Do please stop! If you don’t I shall leave you!”

She was defending herself so energetically that Pirovani thought it the moment to intervene. He resolutely stepped into the “shrine.” At sight of him Canterac let go his hold of Elena and stood up. While the marquesa picked up her hair pins and straightened her hat, the two men glared at one another. Finally the Italian spoke.

“You seem in great haste,” he remarked sarcastically, “to collect your pay for what the party has cost you.”

To Canterac it seemed so incredible that the contractor should dare insult him to his face, and in the costly park that was his own invention, that he remained speechless for several seconds. Then his anger, the anger of the man accustomed to commanding and receiving obedience, broke out in a cold blinding flash.

“What right have you to speak to me?... I ought to have known better than to have invited as my guest an ignorant immigrant, who has made his money God knows how....”

Pirovani became furious, raging at receiving such an insult, and before Elena. And, as the hot violence within him clamored for satisfaction, by way of reply he threw himself upon the engineer and struck him a heavy blow. In a flash the two men had come to grips and were bending backwards and forwards in desperate attempts to gain the advantage; and Elena, her serenity quite gone, was crying in alarm.

There was a general rush towards the bower, Robledo and Watson arriving first, and together. The engineer and the contractor, tightly grasping one another, were rolling on the floor, breaking down as they did so a part of the “shrine.”

Pirovani, heavier and more powerful than Canterac, was crushing the latter with his weight. Rage had made the contractor forget all the Spanish he knew, and in Italian he was hurling out blasphemies alluding to the Virgin and most of the inhabitants of Heaven, and imploring those who were trying to separate him from the Frenchman to let him devour his adversary’s “gizzard.” In a few seconds he had reverted to the years of his adolescence when in some “gin shop” of the Genoese waterfront, he would knock down some one of his companions in poverty, and roll on the ground with him, pommelling him, and hurling epithets even more violent than his blows.

By dint of vigorous pulling and the application of several fists, some of the men finally succeeded in separating the two assailants. Watson, with utter contempt for both of them, rushed to the marquesa and stood in an attitude of defense before her as though she were menaced by some danger.

Robledo looked at the two rivals. Each one of them from the midst of the group that had gathered round him, was insulting the other, eyes blood-shot, tongues thick and stammering with rage. Both of them had for the moment forgotten all the Spanish they had learnt, and were ejaculating the worst words they knew in their respective native languages.

Then he turned to look at the marquesa, who was sighing and exclaiming like a child, while she leaned against Richard Watson.

“Now we’re in for it,” muttered Robledo to himself. “There’ll be murder done yet for that woman!” and without looking again at Watson he turned away.