Rainbow's End. Rex Beach
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minimize the reports of his success, and we, here, don't understand what's really going on. Anyhow, business has stopped, and my employers have ordered me home to find out what's happened to their profits. They seem to hold me personally responsible for this insurrection."
"I see. And when you have told them the truth you will come back. Is that it?"
"I—Perhaps."
"You said there was something else—"
O'Reilly's hesitation became an embarrassed silence. He tried to laugh it off.
"There is, otherwise I'd stay right here and tell my penurious friends to whistle for their profits. It seems I'm cursed with a fatal beauty. You may have noticed it? No? Well, perhaps it's a magnificent business ability that I have. Anyhow, the president of my company has a notion that I'd make him a good son-in-law."
"I—Oh!" cried Rosa.
And at her tone O'Reilly hurried on:
"These rich men have the most absurd ideas. I suppose I'll have to—"
"Then you are in love, senor?"
The young man nodded vigorously. "Indeed I am—with the sweetest girl in Cuba. That's the whole trouble. That's why I'm hurrying home to resign before I'm fired." Not daring to look too long or too deeply into Rosa Varona's eyes until she had taken in the whole truth, he waited, staring at his feet. "I'm sort of glad it has come to a show-down and I can speak out. I'm hoping she'll miss me." After a moment he ventured, "Will she—er—will you, Rosa?"
"I? Miss you?" Rosa lifted her brows in pretended amazement. Then she tipped her head daintily to one side, as if weighing his question earnestly. "You are amusing, of course, but—I won't have much time to think about you, for I am so soon to be married."
"Married? WHAT?" O'Reilly started violently, and the girl exclaimed, with well-feigned concern:
"Oh, senor! You have wounded yourself again on that thorn-bush. This place is growing up to brambles."
"It wasn't my finger! Something pierced me through the heart. MARRIED?
Nonsense!"
"Indeed! Do you think I'm so ugly nobody would have me?"
"Good Lord! You—" O'Reilly swallowed hard. "I won't tell you the truth when you know it so well."
"The richest man in Matanzas asked for my hand this very afternoon."
"Who? Mario de Castano?"
"Yes."
O'Reilly laughed with relief, and though Rosa tried to look offended, she was forced to smile. "He's fat, I know," she admitted, "and he makes funny noises when he breathes; but he is richer than Croesus, and I adore rich men."
"I hate 'em!" announced O'Reilly. Then for a second time he took Rosa's dimpled hand, saying, earnestly: "I'm sure you know now why I make love so badly, dear. It's my Irish conscience. And you'll wait until I come back, won't you?"
"Will you be gone—very long?" she asked.
O'Reilly looked deeply now into the dark eyes turned to his, and found that at last there was no coquetry in them anywhere—nothing but a lonesome, hungry yearning—and with a glad, incoherent exclamation he held out his arms. Rosa Varona crept into them; then with a sigh she upturned her lips to his.
"I'll wait forever," she said.
IV
RETRIBUTION
Although for a long time Dona Isabel had been sure in her own mind that Pancho Cueto, her administrador, was robbing her, she had never mustered courage to call him to a reckoning. And there was a reason for her cowardice. Nevertheless, De Castano's blunt accusation, coupled with her own urgent needs, served to fix her resolution, and on the day after the merchant's visit she sent for the overseer, who at the time was living on one of the plantations.
Once the message was on its way, Isabel fell into a condition bordering upon panic, and was half minded to countermand her order. She spent an evening of suspense, and a miserable night. This last, however, was nothing unusual with her; she was accustomed to unpleasant dreams, and she was not surprised when old familiar shapes came to harass her. Nor, in view of her somnambulistic vagaries, was she greatly concerned to find, when she woke in the morning, that her slippers were stained and that her skirt was bedraggled with dew and filled with burs.
Scarcely a month passed that she did not walk in her sleep.
Cueto was plainly curious to learn why he had been sent for, but since he asked no questions, his employer was forced to open the subject herself. Several times he led up to it unsuccessfully; then she took the plunge. Through dry, white lips she began:
"My dear Pancho, times are hard. The plantations are failing, and so—" Pancho Cueto's eyes were set close to his nose, his face was long and thin and harsh; he regarded the speaker with such a sinister, unblinking stare that she could scarcely finish: "—and so I—can no longer afford to retain you as administrador."
"Times will improve," he said.
"Impossible! This war threatens to bring utter ruin; and now that Esteban and Rosa are home they spend money like water. I groan with poverty."
"Yes, they are extravagant. It is the more reason for me to remain in your service."
"No, no! I tell you I'm bankrupt."
"So? Then the remedy is simple—sell a part of your land."
Although this suggestion came naturally enough, Dona Isabel turned cold, and felt her smile stiffen into a grimace. She wondered if Cueto could be feeling her out deliberately. "Sell the Varona lands?" she queried, after a momentary struggle with herself. "Esteban would rise from his grave. No. It was his wish that the plantations go to his children intact."
"And his wish is sacred to you, eh?" Cueto nodded his approval, although his smile was disconcerting. "An admirable sentiment! It does you honor! But speaking on this subject, I am reminded of that dispute with Jose Oroz over the boundary to La Joya. He is a rascal, that Oroz; he would steal the sap out of your standing cane if he could. I have promised to show him the original deed to La Joya and to furnish him with the proofs about the boundary line. That would be better than a lawsuit, wouldn't it?"
"Decidedly! But—I will settle with him myself."
Cueto lifted an admonitory hand, his face alight with the faintest glimmer of ironic mirth. "I couldn't trust you to the mercies of that rascal," he said, piously. "No, I shall go on as I am, even at a sacrifice to myself. I love Don Esteban's children as my very own; and you, senora—"
Isabel knew that she must win a complete victory at once or accept irretrievable defeat.
"Never!" she interrupted, with a tone of finality. "I can't accept your sacrifice. I am not worthy. Kindly arrange to turn over your books of account at once. I shall make you as handsome a present as my circumstances will permit in recognition of your long and faithful service."
Then Pancho Cueto did an unexpected thing: he laughed shortly and shook his head.
Dona Isabel was ready to faint and her voice quavered as she went on: "Understand me, we part the best of friends despite all I have heard against you. I do not believe these stories people tell, for you probably have enemies. Even if all they say were true I should force myself to be lenient because of your affection for my husband."
The man rose, still smiling. "It is I who have been lenient," said he.
"Eh? Speak plainly."
"Gladly. I have long suspected that Don Esteban hid the deeds of his property with the rest of his valuables, and now that you admit—"
Dona