Held at bay the entire crew....”
In her charming quarters, aided and abetted by a couple of Indian seamstresses, Leoncia, half in mirth, half in sadness, and in all sweetness and wholesomeness of generosity, was initiating the Queen into the charmingness of civilized woman’s dress. The Queen, a true woman to her heart’s core, was wild with delight in the countless pretties of texture and adornment with which Leoncia’s wardrobe was stored. It was a maiden frolic for the pair of them, and a stitch here and a take-up there modified certain of Leoncia’s gowns to the Queen’s slenderness.
“No,” said Leoncia judicially. “You will not need a corset. You are the one woman in a hundred for whom a corset is not necessary. You have the roundest lines for a thin woman that I ever saw. You ...” Leoncia paused, apparently deflected by her need for a pin from her dressing table, for which she turned; but at the same time she swallowed the swelling that choked in her throat, so that she was able to continue: “You are a beautiful bride, and Francis can only grow prouder of you.”
In the bathroom, Francis, finished shaving first, broke off the song to respond to the knock at his bedroom door and received a telegram from Fernando, the next to the youngest of the Solano brothers. And Francis read:
Important your immediate return. Need more margins. While market very weak but a strong attack on all your stocks except Tampico Petroleum, which is strong as ever. Wire me when to expect you. Situation is serious. Think I can hold out if you start to return at once. Wire me at once.
Bascom.
In the living room the two Morgans found Enrico and his sons opening wine.
“Having but had my daughter restored to me,” Enrico said, “I now lose her again. But it is an easier loss, Henry. To-morrow shall be the wedding. It cannot take place too quickly. It is sure, right now, that that scoundrel Torres is whispering all over San Antonio Leoncia’s latest unprotected escapade with you.”
Ere Henry could express his gratification, Leoncia and the Queen entered. He held up his glass and toasted:
“To the bride!”
Leoncia, not understanding, raised a glass from the table and glanced to the Queen.
“No, no,” Henry said, taking her glass with the intention of passing it to the Queen.
“No, no,” said Enrico. “Neither shall drink the toast which is incomplete. Let me make it:
“To the brides!”
“You and Henry are to be married to-morrow,” Alesandro explained to Leoncia.
Unexpected and bitter though the news was, Leoncia controlled herself, and dared with assumed jollity to look Francis in the eyes while she cried:
“Another toast! To the bridegrooms!”
Difficult as Francis had found it to marry the Queen and maintain equanimity, he now found equanimity impossible at the announcement of the immediate marriage of Leoncia. Nor did Leoncia fail to observe how hard he struggled to control himself. His suffering gave her secret joy, and with a feeling almost of triumph she watched him take advantage of the first opportunity to leave the room.
Showing them his telegram and assuring them that his fortune was at stake, he said he must get off an answer and asked Fernando to arrange for a rider to carry it to the government wireless at San Antonio.
Nor was Leoncia long in following him. In the library she came upon him, seated at the reading table, his telegram unwritten, while his gaze was fixed upon a large photograph of her which he had taken from its place on top the low bookshelves. All of which was too much for her. Her involuntary gasping sob brought him to his feet in time to catch her as she swayed into his arms. And before either knew it their lips were together in fervent expression.
Leoncia struggled and tore herself away, gazing upon her lover with horror.
“This must stop, Francis!” she cried. “More: you cannot remain here for my wedding. If you do, I shall not be responsible for my actions. There is a steamer leaves San Antonio for Colon. You and your wife must sail on it. You can easily catch passage on the fruit boats to New Orleans and take train to New York. I love you!—you know it.”
“The Queen and I are not married!” Francis pleaded, beside himself, overcome by what had taken place. “That heathen marriage before the Altar of the Sun was no marriage. In neither deed nor ceremony are we married. I assure you of that, Leoncia. It is not too late——”
“That heathen marriage has lasted you thus far,” she interrupted him with quiet firmness. “Let it last you to New York, or, at least, to ... Colon.”
“The Queen will not have any further marriage after our forms,” Francis said. “She insists that all her female line before her has been so married and that the Sun Altar ceremony is sacredly binding.”
Leoncia shrugged her shoulders non-committally, although her face was stern with resolution.
“Marriage or no,” she replied, “you must go—to-night—the pair of you. Else I shall go mad. I warn you: I shall not be able to withstand the presence of you. I cannot, I know I cannot, be able to stand the sight of you while I am being married to Henry and after I am married to Henry.—Oh, please, please, do not misunderstand me. I do love Henry, but not in the ... not in that way ... not in the way I love you. I—and I am not ashamed of the boldness with which I say it—I love Henry about as much as you love the Queen; but I love you as I should love Henry, as you should love the Queen, as I know you do love me.”
She caught his hand and pressed it against her heart.
“There! For the last time! Now go!”
But his arms were around her, and she could not help but yield her lips. Again she tore herself away, this time fleeing to the doorway. Francis bowed his head to her decision, then picked up her picture.
“I shall keep this,” he announced.
“You oughtn’t to,” she flashed a last fond smile at him. “You may,” she added, as she turned and was gone.
Yet Yi Poon had a commission to execute, for which Torres had paid him one hundred gold in advance. Next morning, with Francis and the Queen hours departed on their way to Colon, Yi Poon arrived at the Solano hacienda. Enrico, smoking a cigar on the veranda and very much pleased with himself and all the world and the way the world was going, recognized and welcomed Yi Poon as his visitor of the day before. Even ere they talked, Leoncia’s father had dispatched Alesandro for the five hundred pesos agreed upon. And Yi Poon, whose profession was trafficking in secrets, was not averse to selling his secret the second time. Yet was he true to his salt, in so far as he obeyed Torres’ instructions in refusing to tell the secret save in the presence of Leoncia and Henry.
“That secret has the string on it,” Yi Poon apologized, after the couple had been summoned, as he began unwrapping the parcel of proofs. “The Senorita Leoncia and the man she is going to marry must first, before anybody else, look at these things. Afterward, all can look.”
“Which is fair, since they are more interested than any of us,” Enrico conceded grandly, although at the same time he betrayed his eagerness by the impatience with which he motioned his daughter and Henry to take the evidence to one side for examination.
He tried to appear uninterested, but his side-glances missed nothing of what they did. To his amazement, he saw Leoncia suddenly cast down a legal-appearing document, which she and Henry had read through, and throw her arms, whole-heartedly and freely about his neck, and whole-heartedly and freely kiss him on the lips. Next, Enrico saw Henry step back and exclaim in a dazed, heart-broken way:
“But, my God, Leoncia! This is the end of everything. Never can we be husband and wife!”
“Eh?” Enrico snorted. “When everything was arranged! What do you mean, sir? This is an insult! Marry you shall, and marry to-day!”
Henry, almost in stupefaction, looked to Leoncia to speak for him.
“It is against God’s law and man’s,” she said, “for a man to marry his sister. Now I understand my strange love for Henry. He is my brother. We are full brother and sister, unless these documents lie.”
